Caitlin Hall Editor in chief

We're not here to win friends, get autographs or sleep with the lead singer.

We're not here to pad our resumés or impress chicks.

And Lord knows we're not here for the pay.

In another life, we might have been gossipmongers and ladies at afternoon tea parties, private eyes and prosecutors, teachers and preachers.

We're here because we want to know - because we pathologically need to know - what's going on.

When I applied to the Wildcat as a freshman, being a journalist couldn't have been farther from my mind.

I'd just turned 18, just started college and just been catapulted into adulthood.

I was confused, distraught and really, really pissed off.

I wanted to know why tuition was shooting up - and later, why it wasn't shooting up faster; why I couldn't get basketball tickets and why on Earth Dick Tomey had been forced out of a job; why I couldn't get into any of the classes I needed and why my baby-faced professors couldn't afford to make photocopies of the syllabi.

I was filled with self-righteous indignation, and wrote like I'd just discovered the thesaurus.

It may seem like my story is an aberration - going to work for a paper without any interest in "journalism."

But I've found that to be the rule, rather than the exception, at the Daily Wildcat.

What I didn't realize when I started out here is that journalism - good journalism, at least - is grounded in people writing on topics they care about, simply because they care about them.

Most people join student media not to become journalists, but to become people in the know - those who know first, those who know best.

The sense of duty that they develop doesn't materialize out of thin air; it comes from first feeling that what they're writing on is important, and then realizing that it's not only important to the person doing the reporting.

Perhaps that's why we aren't all journalism majors here, as might be expected at a student newspaper.

Students come to the Wildcat from disciplines as diverse as English, math, life sciences, engineering, performing arts and history.

They come for the awesome privilege of having the first and most complete access to the people that daily affect the lives of everyone on campus.

However, don't make the mistake of thinking that, when it comes to those same people, appreciation translates to praise.

Our job is to evaluate, question, criticize and hold accountable those with the power to make decisions, and we take that job very seriously.

You won't find us climbing into bed with Pete Likins or sitting on the lap of Alistair Chapman.

And though we pledge to be your ally, we ain't gonna be your friend.

So as the bustle of college begins anew, turn and return to the Wildcat for the news you need to know.

Student life can be hard, but we've got your back.

Caitlin Hall is a philosophy and molecular and cellular biology senior. She can be reached at editor@wildcat.arizona.edu