Peacock’s new Office spinoff, The Paper, debuted to solid reviews and surprising confidence from the streamer, which has already renewed it for a second season. While its connection to The Office is largely tangential (beyond the presence of Oscar Núñez reprising his role), Peacock is banking on the lingering goodwill of The Office fans who loved the original series or binged the whole thing during the pandemic, marketing it as a direct continuation.
The connection to The Office is readily apparent, but The Paper is also reminiscent of a different series that was also originally developed as an Office spinoff: Parks and Recreation. Beyond their similar Midwest settings, The Paper attempts to assert the importance of local journalism in the same way that Parks and Rec stumped for local government, shedding light on the importance of an often thankless and challenging field. And it may be even harder than what Parks and Rec pulled off during its run.
How ‘The Paper’ Sticks up for a Struggling Institution
It’s no secret that the field of journalism is in a difficult spot right now, and this goes double for local papers. Local outlets, particularly in smaller communities, have been shuttering left and right in recent years, and The Paper doesn’t shy away from the rather bleak reality of the situation. When Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson) joins the struggling Toledo Truth Teller as its new editor-in-chief, he’s confronted with a paper that’s a shell of its former self, publishing insubstantial clickbait articles and a handful of news stories from bigger outlets.
The series places Ned in the Leslie Knope position, an idealistic true believer who attempts to inspire his fellow staff to care about the importance of what they do. Ned has many noble, romanticized ideas about the role of local journalism in a community, including holding its leaders accountable and speaking out about issues that directly affect people’s lives. Parks and Rec‘s exploration of the struggles and rewards of public service covered similar ground, showing that, while the work was rarely easy and people aren’t often as grateful as they should be, it’s still work that’s worth doing.
Parks and Rec is sometimes credited with inspiring people to pay attention to and invest in their local government. Hopefully, The Paper might motivate viewers to subscribe to their local paper (if they’re lucky enough to still have one). While the series is often bluntly honest about the challenges involved, Ned’s idealism is infectious, and the show seems to agree that local news coverage is an essential part of a thriving community.
Why ‘The Paper’ Has a Harder Job Than ‘Parks and Rec’
Making a series about the importance of local government was likely no picnic, but The Paper is facing an even more difficult environment than Parks and Rec did. Parks and Recreation ran from 2009 to 2015, during the Obama administration, a time when many people still held some optimism towards their government. While there was still plenty of opposition, anti-government rhetoric hadn’t yet infiltrated the mainstream in the ways it would just a few years later. Back then, it wasn’t too much of a leap to imagine that people in government might actually care about their communities and have their best interests at heart.
2025, however, is a much different reality. While The Paper isn’t concerned with the ins and outs of local government, distrust in the field of journalism is also at an all-time high, following years of politicians casting doubt on the legitimacy of news outlets and the growing problem of disinformation, which has been accelerated by the evolution of generative AI. Add to that the equally struggling business side of the equation, where there’s little market for the kind of boots-on-the-ground journalism that Ned is trying to revive, and the staff of the Toledo Truth Teller has their work cut out for them in more ways than one. These problems have serious real-world implications. Newspapers, even small local ones, can speak truth to power and expose corruption, which becomes much harder to do when a community loses its news coverage.
Still, the series argues that all hope isn’t lost. It’s certainly real about the challenges, but it finds a thread of optimism that picks right up where Parks and Rec left off. The Paper argues that local print journalism isn’t completely dead as long as people are willing to dedicate their time and invest in their communities, doing the hard and often unappreciated work of reporting on what’s going on, and not afraid to be a thorn in the side of those in power. Whether it will capture an audience in the long term remains to be seen (grabbing TV viewers is also much harder these days), but like the staff of the Truth Teller, The Paper is doing important, thankless work. The Paper is streaming now on Peacock.
