From the people who showed you Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) dropping his chili comes a new sitcom, “The Paper,” on the streaming network Peacock. The new sitcom is a sequel to the popular sitcom, “The Office,” and documents the day-to-day life of a struggling newspaper in Toledo, Ohio. The sitcom’s first season is available to stream. 

In the show, the documentary team that filmed Dunder Mifflin Paper Company in Scranton, Pa., returns to Scranton to check up on the company only to find out that Dunder Mifflin was bought out by a large paper supplier company that finances local newspapers. The documentary team then travels to Toledo, Ohio, and finds a familiar face from “The Office” working for The Toledo Truth Teller, a struggling newspaper that is clickbaiting readers with headlines such as “You Won’t Believe How Much Ben Affleck Tipped His Limo Driver.” The newspaper does not have the staff or resources to produce good news articles and even takes articles from the Associated Press to put into its newspaper. 

The sitcom highlights struggles in the journalism industry: rising competition, downsizing local newspapers and increasing digitalization. Even the Creightonian continues to work on its online newspaper as readers switch from paper to the internet. The journalism industry, as shown by the new sitcom, requires innovation and adaptation to changing times. 

However, the journalism industry has been famously marked by people who are not afraid to take on challenges — Bob Woodward, Lois Lane, Ernest Hemingway, Ida B. Wells, Peter Parker, Nellie Bly, Carl Bernstein and Clark Kent — to name a few, real and fictional. And then there is Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), the new editor in chief of The Toledo Truth Teller. Sampson believes he can bring local news back to the struggling paper. 

Of course, bringing back local news and real news writing will be a challenge for the small local newspaper. Producing newswriting can be a challenge for many small local newspapers today. Sampson and the news staff know they must switch gears and try to work with the resources they can. Training new reporters will not be easy. As someone who has worked on a newspaper, explaining concepts like the five Ws and the inverted pyramid barely breaks the surface. So, hopefully Sampson and the rest of the news team will be successful in their attempts to teach prospective journalists about the art of journalism. 
Overall, I am unsure how the new show will be received by people. The sitcom does follow the mockumentary style of “The Office.” There is no laugh track, and there are wacky characters that are sure to make some watchers smile, such as Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore). Grand is one of the managing editors, and full of spunk and unpredictability. The reporters are more likely to crack off some smiles with their quick skepticism. However, it seems the sitcom is trying to make another “The Office,” and I don’t know if it can live up to the high expectations of viewers. But “The Office” struggled at first to track attention. So, who knows? 

The show shows some blunt sides of journalism, but the sitcom elicits hope. As my local newspaper back at home has downsized and raised prices, I cannot help but root for this fictional newspaper as some real newspapers are struggling now to gain readership. Maybe the attention of this sitcom can bring readers back to their local newspapers.