The Oklahoman's George Lang: All about the deep end of journalism

Working in a newsroom as a leader demands a lot on Oklahoman Assistant 
Entertainment Editor George Lang's part, as seen in this video.

   It's hard to keep up with the long, quick strides of George Lang as the seasoned reporter briskly walks between the partitions of the Daily Oklahoman's cubicles and makes his way to the disaster site that is his office on the eighth floor of the OKC building. He shares desks, as luck would have it, with fellow extreme hoarder/resident 'Food Dude' Dave Cathey.

The seventh-floor news office of the Daily Oklahoman behind the glass.

   Stacks of CDs, boxes of free DVDs and promotional goodies cover Lang's desk. To his right a Dwight Schrute bobblehead and figurines of the MAD Kid and the Spotted Elephant (from the "Rudolph" TV special) sit together — it's as if they're watching him write his latest story, a review of "The Walking Dead" premiere. With a photo of a crawling zombie on his screen, it makes sense why he'd leave his lights off. 

   "This is George," Lang says into his chiming office phone, but caustically hangs up after hearing no answer and returns to his computer to finish his story.  

   To make a long story short, the assistant entertainment editor/reporter is anything but lethargic around the office. Besides writing print reviews free promos and Los Angeles press junkets, Lang also updates his NewsOk.com  blog StaticBlog, which includes columns, reviews and indie music videos. Named after a column he started while an OU student, the blog's live music program "Static" began in February 2009 as a forum for emerging local and national musicians, whom Lang interviews on an acoustic soundstage. 

Stacks of books wait to be signed up for reviews.

   "'Static' brings together my love of both substantive rock journalism and amazing music," Lang writes in the About Us of the blog. "The total focus is on the performance and the musicians, achieving an understanding of both their background and their art, and presented in a way that all great musicians deserve." 

The Oklahoman launched the updated Static site last Tuesday for its 38th guest appearance. The re-designed page now has more accessible information about featured and past guest bands, such as a "submit your band" button on the home page. 

   As the first online-based "Static" column Lang has written since college, StaticBlog is also the first blog on NewsOk.com. 
   Lang said his so-called "blogging experiment" is simply another different medium he uses to reach and communicate with people. 

   "I think that NewsOk is an incredibly free thing for us, because you can write until there's nothing left to write," he said. "On my blog, I can write 2,000 words on the latest 'Mad Men' episode," adding with a laugh, "It's there for you if you choose to [read it]."

In this clip, Lang says professionals are still important in the changing news industry:

   After the Oklahoman went into a convergence deal with News 9 in 2000, Lang and other reporters were trained for video, and he was one of the first to willingly go on camera. More recently, Lang has been turning more to social media as another different tool, using Twitter, for example, to drive people to his stories.

   "People are going to get a little more nuance from multimedia," he said. "You can describe the earthquake [for example], but if you can include security camera footage of the earthquake actually happening, that makes it more visceral and maybe more personally understanding to people."

Lang stands behind a camera in the studio where he films his blog Static.

   Depth of coverage has always been the key ingredient in Lang's reporting, ever since he picked up his first copy of Rolling Stone magazine — which recently added a pay wall for its complete online archives — when he was 15 in 1981. While at Jenks High School, Lang was inspired by Rolling Stone writers such as Stephen Holden and Kurt Loder to seriously write about his musical passion with all seriousness.

   "Rolling Stone treated rock 'n' roll ... like it deserved serious treatment, like it deserved some knowledgeable consideration into what was going on," Lang said of why the magazine kept his attention for so long. "There was no [online music website like] Pitchfork — there was no place you could go and instantly get information, so Rolling Stone was kind of it for me."

   After six years in the U.S. Navy mainly presenting military information to his superiors, Lang came to OU in 1991. Eventually graduating with a journalism degree in 1995, he worked for the Oklahoma Daily  and created his "Static" column, whose "snide, caustic tone" became widely popular with students and professors alike, according to Lang.

   "I was kind of flying blind," he said. "I didn't know if I would find a job — if I would be able to support myself doing [journalism], but I also believed that this was probably my main marketable skill."

The first Rolling Stone George Lang read, from Oct. 29, 1981 

with an exposé on Elvis. Lang talks about the magazine's formerly 

exclusive authority in pop culture here:

   From OU, Lang went to a job in hard news at the Oklahoma Gazette, spending all of 1995 and part of 1996 on stories about the Oklahoma City bombing.

  Lang learned while at the Gazette that it was essential to learn how to cover his subjects in a serious manner, even as he moved to more entertainment-related news and eventually to the Oklahoman in 2001. He later became the assistant entertainment editor in 2004, contributing regular entertainment content in both print and online.

   "I don't want to covers something frivolously; I want to find something that is substantial," Lang said. "If I'm writing about 'Megamind' [an upcoming animated film starring Will Ferrell and Tina Fey], I'm still going to find a way to cover it substantively."

   In other words, Lang won't be the one heard asking the dumb question at the round table. In "Megamind's" case, he will probably write about technical considerations of making the film and Tina Fey's recent winning of the Mark Twain Prize. 

   So while he said some of his colleagues actually asked questions like, "Mr. Ferrell, your character is blue. Have you ever been blue?," Lang isn't a fan of such "ridiculous" questions.

The Oklahoman's Assistant Entertainment Editor George Lang has had his share of office messes. 

Lang advises young journalists to know more than they cover, referring to his review of the film 

"The Blind Side" specifically.

   For more information about The Oklahoman's George Lang's "repository" of "musings and harangues," go to blog.newsok.com/staticblog with all of your TV, movies and music needs.