If you read China news, you’ve been hearing rumors about the reporter database. Which doesn’t exist. No, wait, it does. No, no, it doesn’t.

The International Herald Tribune said on the 12th that:

The Chinese government is creating a database with profiles on the thousands of foreign reporters who will be covering next summer’s Beijing Olympics, a top official said in comments published Monday.

The database will contain information on nearly 30,000 reporters and was designed to prevent people from posing as journalists to trick or blackmail interview subjects, Liu Binjie, minister of the General Administration of Press and Publication, was quoted as saying in the state-run China Daily newspaper.

However, two days later, The Washington Times ran this story:

The Chinese government and Beijing Olympics officials yesterday tried to back away from newspaper reports that the Communist authorities are assembling a database to monitor foreign journalists covering the games.

The story in Monday’s China Daily raised questions about the country’s pledge of increased media freedom, part of a successful campaign in landing the Olympics six years ago. It also suggests the authoritarian government might have heavy-handed plans for dealing with the 28,000 reporters expected for the Aug. 8-24 games.

“The report you mentioned is incorrect,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. “There is no such database.”

The original China Daily article, called Crackdown On Bogus Reporters, says:

A database of the 8,000 overseas reporters who will be allowed inside of Olympic venues has been completed, while a database of the 20,000 foreign reporters to be allowed to work in China during the Games is being built