Last night, like almost every night, at a studio in Mumbai’s Lower Parel, the editor-in-chief of a TV news channel was doing what he did best — ranting and raving. A few kilometres south, the mood was far less antagonistic and far more genial as the former editor-in-chief of a national daily interviewed a business tycoon. The setting could easily have been Lutyens’ Delhi, except it was a posh hotel in SoBo (South Bombay).

In the Times Now studio, Arnab Goswami, popularly known as ArGo, raged against #Mandirpolitics, a tussle between two Ayodhya-related announcements – Bharatiya Janata Party’s Ramayana Museum and Samajwadi Party’s Ramleela Park. Over in the hotel, Shekhar Gupta spoke to Mukesh Ambani. It was the latest in the “Off The Cuff” series of conversations by The Print, a news media start-up founded by Gupta, during which Ambani spoke about Reliance, Dhirubhai’s legacy, the role of his children – but mostly about Jio.

The 16-minute segment that was aired on NDTV was eerily reminiscent of ArGo’s interview of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The questions were succinct and devoid of hostility; the interviewee, on the other hand, got to respond at length and without being interrupted. At one point, the venue resounded with laughter at a joke about internet service providers of yore (read: the pre-Jio era); it was Gupta and not Ambani who broached the topic.

If interested, you can find the edited version here. This is what aired during prime time on Monday night on NDTV, the media partners of the event who have links with Reliance. Just FYI, the video uploaded is 15 minutes 48 seconds long. Gupta spoke for less than 50 seconds, Ambani spoke for nearly 14 minutes. The rest of the time was taken up by on-screen graphics and questions posed by guests like Harsha Bhogle and Priyanka Chaturvedi; other guests included Alyque Padamsee and Milind Deora.

Given how far from probing the interview was – the closest Gupta came was when he asked Ambani if Jio was a viable model or financial risk – it was indeed a surprise that prominent outlets decided to give it space. While The Hindu and the Economic Times printed the ‘news’, others like Quartz, Bloomberg Quint, and Financial Express carried it on their websites.

Perhaps it was for the benefit of the many prominent journalists who did not see the complete interview. R Jagannathan, editorial director of Swarajya, only caught a part, and was not surprised that the questions were not particularly probing. “Whenever a guy gives interviews rarely, most people will ask softball questions, otherwise they won’t agree to an interview,” he said. “That’s true for anybody – you ask Sonia Gandhi as well, it’ll be like that.”

J Gopikrishnan, a special correspondent with The Pioneer, who only caught a glimpse of the interview, concurred. “You will not get a chance to (conduct the) interview if you want to question him (Ambani) on KG basin or 4G backdoor entry,” he said. “That’s a normal thing… this is the way everywhere – we’ve seen (Hillary) Clinton giving CNN advance questions.”

Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of The Caravan, went through the highlights of the interview on The Print‘s Twitter feed and decided to give the full version a miss. “The main points were so vapid, you can guess what the rest of it must have been like,” said Bal. “I could not find any news point – it gave me no incentive to go see the entire interview.”

If you want to spend your time experiencing something equally insubstantial, might we suggest any of the following:

• A nap for 15 minutes and 48 seconds (But you might wake up refreshed, so no.)
• Watching paint dry. (But that would be something actually taking place, so no.)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OYhHpMKgTs