What "The Paper" Has to Say About Journalism

"Early on in "The Paper," a new Peacock mockumentary series that follows the staff of the Truth Teller, a fictional newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, viewers are shown a grainy flashback to the institution's heyday, in 1971: the newsroom is bustling, and the publisher is boasting about its foreign bureaus and a recent story that got a third of the city council indicted on bribery charges. In the present day, it's clear that the Truth Teller is in much worse shape."

"Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei), the compositor who puts the newspaper together, pulls mind-numbing stories from a newswire. ("Elizabeth Olsen Reveals Her Nighttime Skin Routine"; "UV nail lamps cause hand Melanoma but not with these 12 tricks.") "Enervate sells products made out of paper," an executive named Ken (played by the excellent British comedian Tim Key) says. "That might be office supplies, that might be janitorial paper-which is toilet tissue, toilet-seat protectors-and local newspapers.""

"Enter Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson), the Truth Teller's peppy new editor-in-chief. He studied journalism in college but then decided to take safer jobs selling high-end cardboard, for his father's company, and toilet paper, for Enervate, and is only now stepping into the news business. "When I was a kid, I didn't wanna be Superman," Ned says. "I wanted to be Clark Kent, 'cause to me Clark is the real superhero. He's saving the world, too, by working at a newspaper.""

The Paper takes place at the Truth Teller, a Toledo newspaper that once had foreign bureaus and powerful investigations but now operates with a skeletal staff and diminished scope. Corporate owner Enervate places the paper alongside toilet-paper brands, extracting marginal value while privileging consumer products. Daily pages are filled by a compositor named Mare Pritti with wire-driven, clickbait features instead of original reporting. Ned Sampson, a newly appointed editor with nostalgic reverence for newspapers, seeks to revive local investigative work by hiring reporters and cutting costs. The show frames a tender appreciation for newspapers’ cultural role while exposing journalistic precarity and corporate indifference.

Read at The New Yorker