Just a few hours ago, I wrote that a record number of journalists - 75 - had already been killed in 2006. This morning, two more - both German reporters - were found murdered in Afghanistan, writes Peter Preston.
And now one of the bravest, most garlanded correspondents in the world, Anna Politkovskaya, is dead; a melancholy 78th in line.
Anna was already a legend wherever journalists met to praise the bravest and the best for her coverage of Chechnya.
It was, and is, one of the most dangerous assignments anywhere, and her independence and readiness to expose excesses on both sides made her the most famous Russian reporter of the era, an example to her trade and a reproach to the authorities who tried to muzzle her.
Of course there will be accusations of Kremlin complicity in her death now, suspicions that past official conduct make almost automatic. Modern Russia does not suffer critics gladly or peacefully.
But Politkovskaya made many enemies in the military and the underworld, too. Her courage always courted disaster in one of the world's most perilous envirnonments for free journalism - and perhaps the greatest test for President Putin's reputation now will be bringing her murderers to book. The dreadful truth about the vast majority of those 78 deaths is that no-one is ever caught or tried for them.
Anna Politkovskaya deserves far better than that from a country she loved and whose independence she cherished.
