Authorities detained a Chinese television anchor for questioning Friday, according to state news media reports. Rui Chenggang, who hosts a financial show on China Central Television, or CCTV, was taken by authorities along with Li Yong, the network's vice director of financial news.

According to information tweeted late Saturday by the People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, authorities abruptly took Rui and Li. They were the next in a series of arrests at CCTV; the advertising director and the network's general director were detained in June on suspicion of bribery.

Colleagues told a senior journalist at CCTV that the day Rui was taken, they were told to take down content related to the anchor from the network's website and television advertisements featuring him. The clearing out is seen as part of President Xi Jinping's anticorruption campaign.

Xi has said the Communist Party, which he leads, is weak from lack of discipline, according to The New York Times.

Rui, who is also fluent in English, has become very popular, interviewing more than 300 Fortune 500 executives and over 30 heads of state, the Times reported.

"He's our star anchor," Guo Zhenxi, the detained general director, said in a 2009 New York Times article. "For the first time, we're examining the health of the nation with a television program."

Rui is known for outrageous, somewhat confrontational statements. In 2010, he was heavily talked about after comments he made to President Barack Obama when Obama called on him for Korean media questions during a South Korean news summit.

"I am actually Chinese, but I think I get to represent the entire Asia," Rui said.

The next year, he asked U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke, "I hear you fly coach. Is this a reminder that U.S. owes China money?" Locke replied that it is standard practice for diplomats to fly in economy class.