ALIVE AND CLICKING?

‘The Paper’ - the mockumentary successor to ‘The Office’ - feels like a beacon of hope in what is an undeniably bleak time for a struggling industry, writes

- Helen Coffey

"Enervate sells products made out of paper. So that might be office supplies; that might be janitorial paper, which is toilet tissue, toilet seat protectors; and local newspapers. And that is in order of quality." Ken Davies, played by British comedian-of- the-moment Tim Key, says this with a self-satisfied smirk in the opening episode of The Paper - a new sitcom from the team behind the US version of The Office that exists in the same universe as fictional paper company Dunder Mifflin.

The show's credits feature newspapers being used for all manner of purposes: wrapped around food or rubbish, stacked to form a platform for seeing over a fence, folded to make an impromptu sunhat. Anything, really, aside from being actually read. It's a neat encapsulation of that old adage about today's news becoming tomorrow's chip paper - and a potent visual of how journalism is viewed by many in 2025.

Of course, when you are a journalist in 2025, it makes for bittersweet (read: heartbreaking) viewing. Sure, I'm relieved that it's a genuinely funny followup to such a beloved and long-running comedy series, a full 20 years after the latter first aired. But it's also incredibly - painfully, even - on the nose. Focusing the mockumentary format around the plight of regional Ohio newspaper the Toledo Truth Teller (TTT), the writers have shrewdly observed the bleak realities of an industry that is not just in decline but, in many cases, on its knees.

This backdrop is swiftly and starkly presented in the pilot episode; a black and white “documentary” about the TTT in 1971 shows a bustling newsroom staffed by nearly a thousand people, including 100 reporters covering Ohio politics and 300 more covering Washington and New York and foreign bureaus all over the world.