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Executive producer Greg Daniels brings his signature sly observation of humanity’s vanities to The Paper, a spinoff of his comedy The Office. The same fictitious documentary crew that was “filming” that series turns their focus to “The Toledo Truth-Teller,” a once glorious daily newspaper now sharing a building floor with a toilet paper brand. No chance of low morale there.

One familiar face returns — Oscar Nuñez‘s accountant character Oscar Martinez, who isn’t happy to see the cameras. Fans will be, but they should expect a very different story than the one about paper company Dunder Mifflin — save for the heavy influence of wood pulp.

It starts at the top of the masthead with an idealistic new editor, Ned Sampson (Domhnall Gleeson, most recently in Echo Valley), the antithesis of The Office’s self-absorbed manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell who starred opposite Gleeson in The Patient.) “It was part of the drive to not repeat stuff,” says Daniels who also freshened things up by working with Michael Koman as co-creator and executive producer after seeing his work on Nathan for You. “It was more fun for contrast to see a boss who could inspire people.”

And this staff needs inspiration. The mood is low, and circulation is lower when Ned arrives. In charge is managing editor Esmeralda Grand (Sabrina Impacciatore, The White Lotus). “It’s just infotainment to her. She’s kind of amoral,” Daniels says. A less principled journalist might strike “kind of” from that quote because when Ned takes over, she looks for ways to sabotage him.

Ned wants to hire more reporters to expand coverage, but the powers that be nix that due to budget. He manages to get the office staff — the accountants, ad salespeople, truck drivers — to volunteer as reporters alongside their paid jobs. Even Oscar gets an arts beat.

“It’s very much about Ned loving journalism and how important journalism is and trying to pursue it with people who are amateurs at this point, unfortunately,” says Daniels, who, with Koman, read autobiographies of journalists to learn about typical newbie mistakes, and what it was like to “start off naive but hopeful and then wise up.”

Receptive to Ned’s ideas are former “Stars and Stripes” reporter Mare Pritti (Chelsea Frei, The Moodys), who dejectedly cuts and pastes stories from a wire service into the layout.  “Chelsea is the person that you identify with. She’s the first person that has a talking head. She wants to sign on to this grand adventure but is worried Ned doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing and won’t to be able to pull it off,” says Daniels.

It took Daniels a minute to choose to do the spinoff. “When The Office was the number one show on Netflix, people were like, ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, we really would like a spinoff.’ But I was working on [sci-fi series] Upload. I was kind of anti-spinoff. I was worried it would hurt The Office. I had such a wonderful experience, and I was so protective,” Daniels says.

As time passed, he realized his baby was safe. “It didn’t feel to me like there was much danger of [a spinoff] opening up [new The Office] stories. The cast had made a decision in the finale to provide closure. The characters had a completion to the arc that started in the beginning. Oscar was a good character to port over because he was pretty much the same guy he always was.”

Once the pilot was finished, Daniels, who worked on his college newspaper, naturally fact-checked it. He and Koman spent time at a grand old Midwestern newspaper — where they marveled at the heavy steel presses in the basement, inspiring a scene in the show. Koman regularly reads 30 local papers online. “Strangely, you get a sense of what it must be like to work at a place just from reading the paper,” he says.

One fun flourish is the doc within a doc that brings to life, in gorgeous black and white, The Truth-Teller’s heyday. “We were so excited about having [Pulitzer and Tony-winning playwright and actor] Tracy Letts be in that thing because he’s such a great guy,” Daniels says. “It’s difficult because we had to undo the set to put it back to the 1970s version of itself, but thematically, it’s so important to see the difference, to see what’s inspiring Ned and what it could be if given the resources. That’s his mission to restore the glory days.”

The Paper, All 10 Episodes Streaming, Thursday, September 4, Peacock