Two decades after the world was introduced to the mundane grind of corporate life at Dunder Mifflin Paper Company with “The Office,” a new mockumentary comedy series has arrived to satisfy the nation’s craving for awkward silences and lukewarm characters to pity: “The Paper.”
All 10 episodes of the show have been available for streaming on Peacock since Sept. 4. With a completely new cast, apart from returning cast member Oscar Nuñez, “The Paper” occurs in the same cinematic universe as “The Office.”
The pilot episode explains how Enervate, a paper company in Ohio, acquired Dunder Mifflin in 2019. But, rather than focusing on corporate paper sales, the company is primarily concerned with the success of their toilet paper brand. The local newspaper, The Toledo Truth Teller, operates out of the same office, bringing viewers a quirky cast of fledging reporters.
Domhnall Gleeson stars as Ned, the new editor in chief who is eager to bring integrity back to the Truth Teller. In terms of accuracy to a real newsroom, he hits the nail on the head when teaching his ragtag team how to write a story. Ned starts with the five W’s — who, what, when, where and why — something every Medill student began chanting in their sleep at some point during freshman fall.
The show uses the first few episodes as a way to familiarize audiences with the characters in the newsroom, picking up momentum as the characters buy into the importance of local news leading up to the Ohio Journalism Awards.
Chelsea Frei plays the role of Mare, a veteran who wrote for the army’s Stars and Stripes newspaper.
Ramona Young is Nicole, an employee managing circulation who quickly becomes the focus of a romantic subplot. Melvin Gregg plays the character Detrick, a sales representative for the paper with a crush on Nicole.
NBCUniversal invited The Daily to participate in a virtual college newspaper roundtable with cast members Chelsea Frei, Romana Young and Melvin Gregg.
At the roundtable, the cast members discussed some of their favorite moments during filming and what they learned about journalism by playing reporters on TV.
Frei said she spoke to local journalists to prepare for the role and was surprised to learn that reporters are not allowed to accept products or dinner or any other kind of gift from sources.
“Even down at that level, you think of that with the New York Times, but no, with everybody,” she said. “You have to be so careful about not accepting bribes.”
Some of Frei’s own journalistic work is also featured in the show. She said she dove into reading about tank drivers in various wars and understanding what it would have been like to write for an army paper. The episode director asked if she wanted to write an article that would be shown on screen, and Frei gave it a shot.
“I wrote this entire article about the bulldog navy mascot retiring, and it’s now on my desk and I’m like, so proud of it,” she said. “It’s kind of a nice thing to be able to look at even when I feel like I’m a fraud.”
Just like a real newsroom, “The Paper” also captures some of the unfiltered moments that occur when conducting research in the name of the greater good.
Gregg said one of the most fun scenes to film was in the “Churnalism” episode when the characters review different products to drive up their website clicks. Nicole picks warm kombucha, which ends in her vomiting and Detrick subsequently vomiting on her in horror.
“I had to dig deep and pull something out that I didn’t know I had,” he said. “I think it was a pleasant experience for both of us, if I can speak for both of us.”
For Young, who got vomited on, the feeling was not mutual.
From my perspective, “The Paper” has a more inspirational tone than “The Office,” full of characters with a zest for the principles of good journalism. The title of the paper itself underlines the idealistic role that journalists have undertaken in the age of AI and misinformation: The Truth Teller.
Yet, there is still a bleak undercurrent to The Truth Teller’s workplace, adding to recent shows like FX’s “The Lowdown,” which portrays the public’s underestimation of good journalism.
Unlike the Dunder Mifflin employees where the dismal day-to-day is exacerbated by their long-term sense of self-failure, the atmosphere of the Truth Teller is disheartening in the context of newspapers as a dying medium.
Through bringing attention to the value of newspapers, Frei said she hopes that viewers of “The Paper” will be inspired to reengage with local journalism.
“You kind of realize that these places need to exist because sometimes they have the most relevant information to the town,” she said. “I hope if anything it just kind of reminds people to subscribe to their local paper.”
Email: claramartinez2028@u.northwestern.edu
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