A top business journalist with state broadcaster CCTV has been taken in for questioning by local prosecutors, finance magazine Caixin reported on its website on Saturday. Rui Chenggang, the 37-year-old co-host of a nightly business news program, was conspicuously absent on Friday. Though the show went ahead, it featured just a single host, beside whom was an empty chair and microphone. An unnamed insider was quoted as saying that prosecutors took Rui away from the CCTV offices on Friday without notifying the program's producers. Li Yong, 46, vice director of CCTV's Finance Channel, which produces Rui's program, and a third, unidentified, person, were also taken in for questioning, the report said. Li had been scheduled to leave for an assignment in Brazil, but was apprehended prior to his departure, it said. Though the report did not say why Rui and Li were being investigated, their sudden disappearance came just weeks after Guo Zhenxi, director of CCTV's Finance Channel, was detained on May 31 by prosecutors in Jilin Province on suspicion of taking bribes. His detention was related to a wider investigation into alleged high-level corruption at CCTV. Following Guo's arrest, rumors circulated that Rui and Li would be next, the report said. Rui is a well-known journalist in China and has interviewed many key figures from the worlds of politics and business. In 2007, he led a successful campaign to eject Starbucks from the Forbidden City in Beijing. Li graduated from Renmin University of China and joined CCTV in 1993. He became a producer of the Finance Channel in 2002. Related News
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