The Age of Incorporated Media Has Come.

“Journalism isn’t about just the written or the spoken world but all of them.” -- Words from Brad Kalbfeld’s mouth.

Kalbfeld is the former Managing Editor/Broadcast for Associated Press, and was talking to George Mason University Online Journalism students about the new media world.

Equipped with three props of “journalists pasts” Kalbfeld physically illustrated the technological progression of journalism since the early 1980s. The first prop Kalbfeld dug out of his Mary Poppins-like bag of journalistic history was a portable typewriter from 1982.

Kalbfeld lugged his weighty typewriter on countless flights from the Vatican during his stint as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press.

“Portable” is a gentle word, since this typewriter was roughly 20 pounds.

Another tool from the late 1980s emerged from Kalbfeld’s bag only to weigh down the table even more. A gigantic tape recorder thunked onto the tabletop, which looked like something suited for an early 1990s rapper than a serious journalist.

“I wasn’t issued just one of these, but two,” said Kalbfeld, “I also had a microphone. I would record and dub out of one tape recorder and then re-record onto the other one and mix my voice in to make a radio spot.”

Kalbfeld added a Radio Shack TRS-80 "laptop" computer to the growing pile of journalistic tools, saying that this was considered high-tech.

A final tool Kalbfeld toted along was more familiar to Mason students. Clad in a leather carrying case, Kalbfeld whipped out an iPod Touch.

“Today, all these old journalistic devices converge into a tool like and iTouch or an iPhone,” said Kalbfeld, “from an analog world, I learned to use these tools for journalism. If I don’t use an iPod to take advantage of my story…I’m screwed.”

Today, Kalbfeld has moved on from his position as Managing Editor for AP and now works as a type of new media guru, coaching print journalists on how they can improve on their web techniques.

“Journalism isn’t just about the written or the spoken world, but all of them,” said Kalbfeld, “Because if I can catch you now, your careers will be stronger and better founded in universal mediums.”