BEIJING — A top business journalist at China’s state broadcaster was taken away by prosecutors, and therefore absent from his nightly newscast he anchors, reported China’s financial news magazine Caixin on Saturday.
The removal of celebrity journalist Rui Chenggang came less than two months after his boss was detained on suspicion of taking bribes during an ongoing investigation into high-level corruption at China’s biggest state-run network.
Quoting an unnamed insider, said on its website that prosecutors took Rui away directly from the workplace without notifying the news program. Caixin said Rui had been scheduled to appear on the nightly newscast Friday, and his absence was conspicuous, as a second microphone remained on the set.
Rui has interviewed many world leaders and business magnates and is known for his nationalistic streak. He has more than 10 million followers on his Twitter-like microblog page.
In 2007, he protested the presence of a Starbucks shop at Beijing’s Forbidden City and helped start a grassroots movement that kicked the U.S. brand out of the historic site. He raised eyebrows in 2009 when he claimed he could represent the entire continent of Asia at a news conference for President Barack Obama.
