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 Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).