Ink and Insight: Greg Daniels, Michael Koman Project Actors Shadow Post Staff for a Visit to the World of Journalism

By SARAH SHMERLING | Editor-in-Chief

With more than 90 years of history in local journalism, who better to call than the Palisadian-Post to get an inside look into how a newspaper is assembled?

Three actors from a currently untitled Greg Daniels/Michael Koman project—Chelsea Frei, Melvin Gregg and Ramona Young—visited with the Post to shadow staff members in ad sales, circulation, reporting and graphic design to gain a deeper understanding of the inner-workings of a local publication.

The Peacock project—which is rumored to be called “The Paper”—is a new mockumentary series that is set in the same universe as NBC’s Emmy Award-winning series “The Office,” which ran for nine seasons and concluded in 2013. It is not being designed as a reboot—but instead co-existing in the same universe.

“The documentary crew that immortalized Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch is in search of a new subject when they discover a dying historic Midwestern newspaper and the publisher trying to revive it with volunteer reporters,” read a logline for the show.

Gregg (“American Vandal,” “Snowfall”), Frei (“Poker Face,” “The Cleaning Lady”) and Young (“Never Have I Ever,” “Santa Clarita Diet”) have joined the cast of the Universal Television-produced show, which was previously picked up to series.

Domhnall Gleeson (“Ex Machina,” “About Time”) and Sabrina Impacciatore (“The White Lotus”) were confirmed in April to have joined the ensemble cast.

Daniels, Koman, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Howard Klein, Ben Silverman and Banijay Americas (formerly Reveille) are the executive producers of the show. Deadline revealed in January that Daniels had opened up a development room to explore ideas for the series.

NBC’s iteration of “The Office” was adapted by Daniels for American audiences based on an eponymous BBC series from Gervais and Merchant. The show was set in Scranton, Pennsylvania, with a cast that included Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, B.J. Novak, Jenna Fischer, Mindy Kaling, Leslie David Baker, Melora Hardin, Kate Flannery, Brian Baumgartner, Ed Helms, Oscar Nuñez, Craig Robinson and James Spader, who all worked in an office of a branch of a fictional paper company.