I just heard about another journalist colleague who received an anonymous warning online which threatened not just him but also his kids. Creepy.  With just 100 days to go before the 2008 Games, some Western journalists don't exactly feel welcome in the face of death threats, shrill and sometimes obscene name-calling, and criticisms of purported "bias" in Western media reporting of Tibet.

The interesting thing is this: when I tell Chinese friends that foreign reporters are getting death threats, some don't believe it and others just shrug as if to say "what can anyone do?"  Even if I point out that issuing a death threat violates Chinese law, few seem to think this law needs to be enforced.

Don't get me wrong: China remains a relatively safe country to work in as a foreign reporter. That's precisely what makes the present nastiness so noticeable.  

he Foreign Correspondents Club of China -- of which I'm president --  released a statement about such concerns. Here's the text: