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Like many of the students who join the paper to fill these pages, I once had a fascination with celebrities of a different sort.

My own variety, distinct from the species spotted at Westwood movie premieres, were a bit grayer on top, usually white and inevitably more square.

Like former Gov. Gray Davis. The director of the Department of Motor Vehicles, even. A handful of University of California regents. The chancellor, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and Michael Dukakis, to name a few more.

This interest in the news celebrities is like a devastating sickness – both contagious and, I thought, incurable.

So those of us afflicted joined the Daily Bruin, hoping to get a glimpse of that metaphorical red carpet, to feel the rush of excitement from having Ward Connerly actually call us back. The thrill of being recognized by the chancellor on campus, as if we were in some secret Murphy Hall society. The absolute terror upon hearing that we can ask the governor exactly one question – and he’ll be with us in two minutes.

But what happens when one loses that fascination with finding, and reporting on, celebrity? When the news writers want to change the world not by reporting on it, but by becoming the news makers themselves?

I don’t think The Bruin has answered this question about how to reconcile – and tease out – this split ambition in its reporters. A few here have managed to negotiate the difference by preserving their curiosity while resigning themselves to knowing that the impact they have is by proxy. These, admirably, are the journalists.

Others lose interest. Damned by disillusionment, frustration and 50-hour weeks, they resort to press-release inspiration. After awhile, the prospect of simply reporting on the celebrities loses its shininess: Interested in meeting the UC president? I don’t think so. But becoming him? Perhaps.

Fluorescent lights and eight meetings a day might do it to you, as might hour-long conversations about front-page bars, the purpose of centerpieces, the placement of those sports columns and Viewpoint art. Oh, the Viewpoint art.

Some eat it up. And some go crazy.

If a journalist doesn’t want to change the world, I don’t know what she – or he – would be doing in a newsroom to begin with. Certainly, writing anything for public consumption on a regular basis requires one to have a bit of an ego, a thick skin and something to say. But more than just a microphone, this place is supposed to require something else – a reason to say it.

So what of the disillusioned? I think they’ll figure out how to change the world, if they want to. They just might not do it at a newspaper. To do that at a newspaper requires journalists to be impressed by the world while knowing they can never conquer it.

Jenkins was the 2003-2004 managing editor until February, when she quit to become a news columnist and chose her own adventure.