Talking 'The Office' with 'Scranton Times' reporter

If you're familiar with the journalism industry — whether you work as one, aspired to, or simply watched enough Lois and Clark reruns — you probably understand the value of a beat. For the readers, it means someone is dedicated to a singular topic and they can provide a depth and variety of reports (theoretically bringing some expertise to it too). And for a reporter, pair up with the right beat and your work life gets a lot better — a plethora of news to cover and maybe even some fun to be had.

Josh McAuliffe was one of two general features reporters at The Scranton Times in 2004, covering what you'd expect a features reporter to write about in a smaller any-town, America type setting. On one faithful afternoon though, he didn't step out for lunch.

"The first story I did was back in February of 2004, when they were getting ready to film the pilot and they sent a fax requesting permission to shoot the outside of The Times' building," McAuliffe says of the beginning of his Office-following career. "They were coming to shoot exteriors. And someone was just checking the fax machine that day."

McAuliffe remembers the fax (yes, fax) had letterhead from The Office, "and they were going to call it something else at the time: The Office — an American Workplace or something like that." As the features reporter, McAuliffe's editor slid the release his way and asked him to find out what he could. He called the studio where the pilot was being filmed but was told they couldn't comment. And after a struggle to reach the powers that be at NBC, he was finally able to confirm it—the network was filming a pilot, it was set in Scranton and based off the British Office.

"That's almost nine years ago, I think my colleague was out to lunch," he says. "But once I was about three to four stories in, I think my editor figured 'we'll let him have it.' Luckily, I liked the show too so it was not a chore to cover."

McAuliffe has been Scranton's expert on all things Office ever since. The Scranton TimesWeb archives don't even go back as far as his first piece on the show, but McAuliffe is one of the few reporters who still dedicates space to The Office exclusively (get his take on all the action this season via his Times blog).

I had friends who interned at The Times and have been lucky enough to chat with McAuliffe on occasion (along with Whitney, he actually helped earn me an A on an newspaper industry paper during undergrad). So with The Office winding down, I caught up with McAuliffe two weeks ago to get his take on some Office discussion points for the Pop Candy crowd.

On the state of The Office in its final season:

"The Office still has its weight. Some weeks are good while some are 'eh,' but it didn't get awful. It's a very, very watchable show and it's still entertaining. I still get a kick out of what Dwight does and the show is still good when it's not over the top.

But I like the 'Jim and his buddies start the sports marketing firm' subplot. It sets him on a path to have some ambition in his life again. The only ambition he put into his current job was pranking Dwight, but he's kind of growing up and maturing with two kids and a family to support. And again, Dwight will always be endlessly entertaining — though the spin-off wasn't a good idea. It seemed a little too far-fetched. He's a George Costanza or Kramer type — great supporting guys, part of the ensemble but too tough to carry an entire show with. It's too bad for Rainn Wilson, but it wouldn't have worked.

Ultimately, I think it helps to have Greg Daniels back. He was off with Parks & Rec for a few years, but he's sort of bringing the show back to where it was in the first few seasons. It's tough to do, but there has been an improvement over last year."

Reasons to come back post-Michael

"Greg Daniels said early on they couldn't envision the show without Carrell, so it's interesting that they tried it. When you lose your main character, how do you come back from it?

For me, Erin is right up there with Dwight as my favorite characters on the show. She's terrific, Ellie Kemper. She's a great comic actress, plays that character with great tone and she's guileless. She's really likable and I consistently laugh at loud at whatever she's doing in the episodes—the best of the characters that have come later on.

I also think it's worth coming back for how the show handled Jim and Pam. Usually a TV couple gets together, they break up, inevitably get back together—but this was more realistic. They had their moments where they had a fight or something, but it was dealt with in a mature, realistic way. The wedding episode is terrific and so was the way they dealt with their first pregnancy."

And, finally, on a few aspects of the show's relationship with Scranton:

The Office and Scranton today:

"Never in a million years did I think a show would be set in Scranton, it's still kind of weird to me. They could've made a lot more fun of Scranton than they did, they could have been cruel. In a small way they were just mocking small town America in general, could've been anywhere really.

So people really appreciated that they made references. They could've said, 'we're going to say it's Jim's Pizza or something,' but they'd actually reference Cooper's or Alfredo's. Kevin even makes fun of it: Is it Alfredo's Pizza Café because the other one is like tasting a hot circle of garbage? They made the extra little bit of work that goes into something like that.

Today they don't really mention Scranton as much, and that might have been a thing that kept Scranton residents watching. So in addition to quality, there's one less thing for Scrantonians to latch onto that made viewing different for them compared to fans in other cities."

Its legacy in town

"It still happens to anyone—you say you're from Scranton and that's the first reference point. It gave Scranton cache in that way, whether it's good or bad. Some might say the show is not what it once was, but it's still considered a great and it will go down among the best comedies ever. It will always have that because it's so unique, and for us it's the first show that was set in Scranton."

On The Convention:

"Rainn Wilson was the first one to come to Scranton, the year before the convention. He did an appearance at the mall and thousands of people showed up; lines around the block and it was right before Christmas. That's what gave them the idea that they could do an Office convention, when all these people showed up for one guy.

The convention itself was the best, a whole weekend of wall-to-wall Office right in our own backyard. Most actors and actresses from the show and the writers came, thought it was too bad Carrell, Krasinski and Jenna Fischer couldn't be there. But for a reporter it was awesome. I was working nearly 15 hours days, one thing after another. I remember being at the University of Scranton at 4 a.m. in the morning, they have the cast members and Al Roker there and thousands of kids from the university were in the crowd. The weather wasn't great but tons of people showed up. That was definitely the peak of the Scranton-Office convergence.

The one thing a lot of Scrantonians lament is that they haven't come here to film any scenes for an episode. They've talked about doing it over the years but the logistics of doing it is pretty difficult—getting everyone on the plane out to Scranton.

But Greg Daniels told me he and the actors are, particularly Krasinski, interested in possibly coming for some type of series finale wrap party. It'd be great if they can do it, it's up in the air of course. But the guys behind The Office convention are trying to work on that."

What does everyone think of the series as it wraps up — agree with McAuliffe? Share your thoughts in the comments and we can come back here tomorrow after tonight's episode.

Follow Nathan on Twitter @nathanmattise or reach out via e-mail: natemattise@gmail.com