Kal Penn is making a comedy about TV news for ABC

Kal Penn is reuniting with the writers behind the Harold & Kumar series for a TV comedy that sounds like equal parts The Office and The Newsroom. Deadline is reporting that Penn, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg are making a single-camera comedy called Fair and Balanced for ABC, though it’s not yet clear how many episodes have been ordered or where the show currently sits in terms of development. The show will focus on a young reporter (Penn) who aims for a job at NPR but ends up working in cable news — the title’s a play on Fox News’ trademark slogan, so it’s safe to assume the show’s fictional network will have the same palpable skew.

Fair and Balanced will build on the strange résumé Penn’s put together in the decade-plus since his star-making trip to White Castle. He took multiple breaks from acting to work as an associate director in President Obama’s Office of Public Engagement, has worked as a correspondent for Vice News, and served as a guest lecturer in the University of Pennsylvania’s film studies program. Will all of that time spent reporting stories and dealing with news network spin translate into TV humor? Fair and Balanced is still in its infancy, so it might be a while before we find out.