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“Things happen.” Just two words. That was enough for Donald Trump to effectively dismiss what is probably the most notorious journalist killing of the last decade – and in so doing sank to a fresh depth in his disregard toward journalists, for journalism – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the murder of well-known reporter Jamal Khashoggi came during a media briefing with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment had ordered the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (Prince Mohammed has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the murder – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the 59-year-old journalist was drugged and cut apart – was signed off at the highest levels. An inquiry led by then UN special rapporteur, Agnès Callamard, reached similar conclusions.

Global Reactions

For a brief period, nations were in agreement in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and visa bans in that year over the murder, although it refrained of sanctioning the crown prince himself. Since then, the nation has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the leader’s trip to the US capital seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the government had strongly criticized the visit. But what was evident at the White House was more alarming than could have been imagined. Not only did the president honor the Saudi leader but he seemed to alter the facts – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, he asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in direct contradiction to what his country’s own intelligence services determined four years ago. Moreover, Trump said: “A lot of people didn’t like that person that you’re talking about, whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

Pattern of Behavior

This marks a fresh and shameful point for a leader who has made no attempt to hide of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. He has smeared reporters (he called ABC news, whose reporter asked the inquiry about Khashoggi at the Saudi press conference “fake news”), berated them in public (he called one a “rude name” this week for asking about his relationship with the convicted sex offender financier Jeffrey Epstein), taken legal action against media organizations for large amounts of money in frivolous cases, and called for media groups he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has forced established media out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for vital news services at home and vital independent media internationally.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which journalists are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed murder – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“a lot of people disliked that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on record for the press in the more than 30 years the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to bring to justice those responsible for reporter murders has created a environment without consequences in which those who murder reporters are literally able to escape punishment and so continue to do so.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Middle Eastern nation, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 journalists in the past two years.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is deep. Attacks on journalists are assaults on facts. They are attacks on facts. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to exist without fear and safely.

On Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual global journalism honors. The statement there is the same as my one for the president: these things may happen. But it is our duty to make sure they do not.