‘It’s a warm, fun love letter to local journalism’

I stumbled on The Paper by accident and quietly fell in love. It’s not the biggest show of the year or the splashiest or the one that left me with the biggest questions about morality and my place in the universe (hello, The Last of Us). It’s ostensibly a spinoff of the US version of The Office, but with an injection of the heart and earnestness of Parks and Recreation.

The show follows Ned, played by the always watchable Domhnall Gleeson, as he tries to revive the flagging fortunes of The Toledo Truth Teller, a newspaper owned by a toilet paper company.

It’s notoriously difficult to create a show about journalists that journalists themselves actually like. Anything short of All The President’s Men and we tend to throw a strop about how TV and film just don’t understand the reality of our jobs.

The thing is, The Paper does reflect an awful lot of the realities of modern journalism, even when they feel a long way from the dogged heroism and intrigue of Woodward and Bernstein.

It’s a comedy about the struggle to produce something brilliant in a world where budgets just aren’t what they used to be (perhaps people in telly might be able to relate to this bit after all), the thrill of finding a great story, and the bathos when one turns out to be a damp squib.

Above all, it’s about the dent your idealism takes when you realise however good a story might be, it will still have to compete for clicks with listicles of thinly disguised advertising. It’s a warm, fun love letter to local journalism.

STREAMING SHOW OF THE YEAR

Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke,  Disney+

I’m not a massive documentary person. That’s not to say I dislike them – I just tend to gravitate towards dramas. But when I get it together to sit down and watch a doc, I very often find myself blown away by them. Such was the case with Devil in the Family.

ruby franke

I was familiar with the story of Ruby Franke, the influencer who turned her family of six young children into social media stars and was later convicted of aggravated child abuse after her 12-year-old son showed up at a neighbour’s house, emaciated, injured and pleading for help. But Passion Pictures’ film offered a far more profound insight into what happened than any other coverage – not least because it included two of Franke’s now-adult children.

Their thoughtful contributions were handled with incredible sensitivity and respect, and the level of trust they had in the production team shone through. Similarly, the interviews with Franke’s husband Kevin allowed him to sit with the enormity of his responsibility for what happened.

The film eschewed easy answers, and instead raised questions about children’s ability to consent to appearing online, the role of religious extremism, and how this could have happened while the world was apparently watching. It was also gorgeously shot – the claustrophobic, close-up footage filmed by the family themselves for YouTube contrasted with the soaring shots of the vast, sometimes unearthly Utah landscape.

Hopefully this will inspire me to make more room in my TV schedule for documentaries. Even monkeys learn.

Top five UK broadcaster shows  Top five streamer shows
The Paper, Sky Max   1 Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke, Passion Pictures for Disney+
Miss Austen, Studio Lambert for BBC1   2 Last One Laughing, Zeppotron and Initial for Prime Video
What They Found, Avalon for C4   3 Adolescence, Warp Films, Matriarch Productions, Plan B for Netflix
The Last of Us, Sky Atlantic   4 Toxic Town, Broke & Bones for Netflix
The Hack, ITV Studios, AC Chapter One, One Shoe Films, Stan for ITV1   5 Down Cemetery Road, 60Forty Films for Apple TV

Rebecca Cooney index

  • Rebecca Cooney is insight editor, Broadcast

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