Many students cheered the arrival of the first print edition of The New Trier News this year, two months later than usual because of administrative cutbacks. The paper is now published quarterly instead of weekly.

The administration said it cut back the number of print editions because of “the environmental impact of hardcopy printing, a shift in the preferences of key stakeholder audiences and how people access information nowaday, and the financial impact.”

But students such as senior Chloe Lee said they were delighted to receive a printed copy because it inspired conversation amongst friends.

“I’ve never really visited the online site of the New Trier News, so having the copy in my classes to flip through was great,” Lee said. “I was able to talk to some of my friends about the articles, especially about how the administration has placed limits on printing. We even related to the WiFi article about New Trier’s poor internet service.”

The print edition also initiated conversations among adviseries as a whole, said Senior Tara O’Brien.

“The paper brought my whole advisery together, making us feel more connected,” she said. “We all sat and talked about some of our favorite articles and the important issues being raised in the NT News. The physical paper being right there on the desks really captured everyone’s attention.”

With the print paper on hiatus for the last year and a quarter, the November 5 edition was a first experience for freshman and sophomores.

Freshman Teddy Kaczmarek didn’t even realize New Trier had a newspaper.

“It was interesting that our school was able to make a newspaper that looked realistic and had so many cool articles,” said Kaczmarek. “I wish our advisery had more time to read everything, but hopefully there will be more print editions if there are important things happening at school.”

Similarly, juniors and seniors reminisced about having the paper as underclassmen.

“I remember as a freshman reading the news every Friday in my advisery and learning about different parts of the school that I just didn’t know about,” junior Sam Gordon said. “I was disappointed that we wouldn’t have that opportunity this year and that future generations of New Trier students wouldn’t get that opportunity.”

For many students, seeing the NT News on paper was a unique experience. Students felt the designed paper was interesting to interact with and compelled audiences to read the articles more than the online version of the New Trier News.

“Having it on paper and seeing the layout and the headlines and the articles that were in that specific issue at the top of the first page made it a much more immersive and cool experience,” Gordon said. “It felt very fun to have a physical newspaper.”

Some students felt that they would be more likely to read the newspaper, had they had the physical copy in front of them every week in advisery. The hassle of navigating to the website was minimized, as all students had to do were to flip the pages.

“I don’t really see people reading it online. I get that I’m not looking particularly hard, but I don’t really think people are interacting with it except for when we get print versions,” sophomore Jacob Matten said.

Despite these feelings, some students still have hope that the online newspaper will be able to fill the gap of student voices with the cutting of the print paper.

“I feel like we should still print the paper but it’s something we can work around especially in the classroom,” sophomore AJ Swoish said.