Hitting line balls 打擦边球

Roughly analogous with the English term “push the envelope, this phrase (built, clearly, on a sports metaphor) is used to refer to media reports that take calculated political risks, staying roughly within the bounds of what is permissible.


David Bandurski

Now director of the CMP, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David joined the team in 2004 after completing his master’s degree at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He is currently an honorary lecturer at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin/Melville House), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).