The Information’s new show flops

Lachlan Cartwright of Breaker writes about how The Information’s new live show got off to a weak start.

Cartwright reports, “TITV opened with host Akash Pasricha excitedly waving his hands around as if he were trying to perform a magic trick. Pasricha then brought on The Information’s VC reporter, Natasha Mascarenhas, who seemed truly oblivious to the fact that she was on camera. ‘I think we are having a couple of technical difficulties here,’ Pasricha told viewers. ‘Natasha, can you hear me?’ Clearly, Natahsa could not. Pasricha then awkwardly stalled for time before Mascarenhas returned, her audio now working.

“But it was Lessin’s big interview with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg where the train really went off the tracks. ‘Mark Zuckerberg needs no introduction. He has been a busy, busy man lately. He has been doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to get top AI researchers at Meta,’ Pasricha said before turning it over to Lessin.

“For two painstaking minutes, Lessin and Zuckerberg, who is a close personal friend of hers and her husband Sam, could be seen but not heard. ‘Folks, I’m really sorry to jump in here I think we don’t have sound from our interview with Mark Zuckerberg and Jessica Lessin,’ Pasricha told viewers, looking like a man who wished he could just wave his hands and say ‘Abracadabra’ and with a puff of smoke, the show’s audio woes would disappear. ‘We are going to call the show there just for today.'”

Read more here. A subscription is required.