"Ugh... my aching bones."

Assistant Manager Ma Jun-ho, night man on the Joguk Ilbo's internet news team, stretched as the morning sun came through the window.

He'd been on overnight news for months, going home just as everyone else came in.

Eight-twenty in the morning.

All night he'd sorted and filed internet news coming in from countries around the world.

There was more work than you'd think.

In November 2008, with the American financial crisis, groans were coming from every direction.

Just last night, the Fed had poured out one measure after another.

The newly elected Obama was a lead story too.

The trick was picking the stories people would care about.

With college kids backpacking abroad and ordinary people traveling the world without a second thought, you couldn't fake things as sloppily as before.

"Things change so fast... At this rate, a day'll come when individuals make their own news."

A Hanguk University journalism graduate, Ma Jun-ho was of the generation that felt the internet's changes firsthand.

He'd started in 1995 and done his military service partway through.

He was gone only a little over two years, but the school had changed a lot by the time he came back.

Handwritten reports had all become computer documents.

In the meantime, PC bangs had gone mainstream.

A game of pool with friends had turned into a round of computer games.

Thanks to the Hanguk University name, he hadn't had to try very hard to get a job, but he'd felt the changes on his own skin.

Through a senior he knew, he'd gotten into the Joguk Ilbo without much trouble.

As a cub reporter, he'd found out how feared the Joguk Ilbo was.

Government offices, any organization at all: show a Joguk Ilbo press pass, and they treated you well, no questions asked.

Tagging along behind his seniors, he'd been treated to drinks and all sorts of other entertainment.

He couldn't remember ever paying for his own meal.

Whatever journalist's pride he'd had left slowly dulled and faded.

Joguk Ilbo reporters survived not on their stories but on politics and…