It’s the part we were born to play!
Television show “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” filmed at the Brooklyn Paper’s Downtown office recently, using it as a set for a newsroom sketch starring Jason Sudeikis, Bobby Cannavale, and Rose Byrne that aired on Sunday night.
The Home Box Office show’s honchos looked at several other newsrooms around the city, according to the man who pulled the office out of obscurity and made it a star, but only one had the look of an authentic newspaper bullpen, worn in by hard-nosed reporters through decades of shoe-leather journalism and speaking truth to power. (Also, it’s pretty large, which is what the producers really needed).
“They liked the depth, you could make it look like a busy newsroom,” said location scout Brad Reichel. “It looked like the cliched bullpen.”
The scene is a spoof of the 2015 movie “Spotlight” — which chronicles the Boston Globe’s real-life investigation into the coverup of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy — and Tribune Publishing’s much-mocked recent rebranding as a digital media company named Tronc.
In the sketch, Sudeikis, the editor of the fictional Chronicle, spikes investigative reporter Cannavale’s big expose in favor of Byrne’s clickbait-friendly story about a cat that looks like a raccoon. The company is later renamed Chorp.
The segment’s broader message — that the Fourth Estates’s thankless but vital role in keeping an close eye on local government and other power players cannot be replaced by listicles and funny tweets — resonated with Brooklyn Paper’s editorial staffers, who sit through hours and hours of community board, Council, and other hearings every week to write important stories that won’t get half the views of “Is it ‘sauce’ or ‘gravy’?”
But, they had to admit — that cat-raccoon idea sounded pretty great, too.
“Animal stories are a pillar of community journalism,” said deputy editor Ruth Brown. “I’d run it if the cat-raccoon was rabid or saved from certain doom by firefighters. Or in a costume contest!”
You won’t catch any actual Brooklyn Paper reporters in the clip — they were all sent home for the day in favor of more attractive actors — but fans of the office’s early, indie work may recognize cameos by the vending machine, desk decorations, and that phone-speaker conference-call doohickey in the meeting room.
Caribbean Life editor Kevin Williams’s desk also gave a breakout performance in its debut role as Cannavale’s workspace.
