The President's Dismissal on Khashoggi Killing Represents a Disturbing Development.

“Incidents take place.” A mere phrase. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to brush off what is arguably the most notorious journalist killing of the past ten years – and in so doing plumbed a new low in his disregard toward the press, for the media – and for the truth.

Background Details

The US president’s dismissal of the killing of prominent journalist the Washington Post columnist came during a media briefing with the Saudi leader, MBS – a man whom the US intelligence concluded in a recent assessment had orchestrated the kidnap and killing of the Washington Post columnist in that year. (The crown prince has denied involvement.)

The US intelligence services were not the only ones to determine the homicide – which occurred in the Saudi diplomatic building in Turkey and in which the late Khashoggi was drugged and cut apart – was approved at the highest levels. An inquiry led by former UN expert, Agnès Callamard, reached comparable findings.

Global Reactions

For a short time, nations were unified in their criticism of the kingdom’s conduct. The United States enacted sanctions and travel restrictions in that year over the killing, although it stopped short of penalizing the crown prince himself. Since then, the kingdom has been slowly rehabilitating itself – and the crown prince’s visit to Washington seemed to be the ultimate sign of that redemption.

Presidential Comments

Critics of the regime had roundly condemned the meeting. But what was evident at the White House was worse than could have been imagined. Not only did the president fete the Saudi leader but he effectively rewrote the facts – and then pointed fingers at the victim. The crown prince, Trump asserted when asked, knew nothing about the killing – in clear opposition to what his country’s own intelligence services determined previously. Moreover, the president said: “Many individuals didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about, whether you approve of him or disapproved, things happen.”

Established Conduct

This represents a fresh and shameful point for a president who has made little secret of his contempt for the truth – or for the press. Trump has smeared reporters (he called a news network, whose journalist asked the inquiry about the journalist at the media event “false information”), 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 news outlets for eye-watering sums of money in frivolous cases, and called for news outlets he doesn’t like to be shut down.

He has forced veteran news services out of the White House press pool for declining to use language of his preference, and he has gutted funding for essential public media at domestically and vital independent media abroad.

Wider Consequences

All of that has fostered an atmosphere in which reporters are manifestly less safe in the United States, but one in which their targeting – and indeed killing – becomes not just insignificant (“incidents occur”) but acceptable (“many individuals didn’t like that gentleman”).

It is no surprise that that year was the most lethal year on file for journalists in the over three decades the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has been tracking this information: a persistent failure to hold those responsible for reporter murders has established a culture of impunity in which those who murder reporters are literally able to get away with murder and so persist in these actions.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Israel, which is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 journalists in the recent period.

Effect on Society

The effect on society is profound. Targeting reporters are assaults on facts. They are undermining of reality. They are violations of our entitlement to information and on our freedom to live freely and securely.

This week, the Committee to Protect Journalists gathers for its annual global journalism honors. My message there is the same as my one for Trump: these things may occur. But it is our responsibility to make sure they cease.