'The Office' creator on why he made 'The Paper'

Greg Daniels is best known for creating The Office, which has now spawned its spinoff, The Paper, which will follow a newspaper and its employees.

However, the decision to focus on a newsroom for the new series stems from the fact that the print section of the field is struggling in the real world.

In a chat with TheWrap, the creator said, “When you think about it, the original show, they were selling stationery in a world where people had iPads. So, the sort of timeliness is not the point."

He explained, “The point is, in this show, it’s sort of like people who have been a little bit beaten down in an uninspiring particular situation, becoming inspired by somebody new — and I think journalism as a pursuit is so important. And the newspapers have been hollowed out by these economic forces.”

“The villains are often these tech companies, I have to say,” the 62-year-old continued. “Google, eBay, like, there’s a lot of places that have stripped all of the source of money out of newspapers."

"And it just seemed like the mission is so great, and it’s such a thing for the characters to be inspired by somebody who comes in and says, ‘Let’s really do this and do it like it used to be done,’” he noted.

It is not the first time Greg has taken a dig at tech companies; his series Upload is an example. However, he said the odds stacked up against the team make it a good underdog story.

“And I guess it’s also like when you’re kind of rooting for the Bad News Bears team. The more difficult the thing is that they’re trying to pull off, the more you want them to win," he concluded.

The Paper will be out on Sept. 4 on Peacock