"Crazy" cameraman shares works of wisdom with young journalists

CBS' "60 Minutes" photojournalist Ray Bribiesca talks to Gaylord College students about his experiences with filming combat in the field Monday, Nov. 1. (PHOTOS: Katie Piper)

   When Ray Bribiesca spoke to OU's Gaylord College students Monday, Nov. 1, he said he could count on one hand how many hot showers and hot food he had while in Vietnam on business.

   That business was filming the intense overseas combat as a Marines combat cameraman when he was 17. 

   Having worked at CBS for more than 30 years as an Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning photojournalist, Bribiesca recently had his newest documentary segment, "A Relentless Enemy," aired on "CBS News" about American soldiers fighting the war in Afghanistan in September, where he put himself on the line several times while filming scenes of the conflict.

   A so-called "crazy" cameraman by his family and friends, Bribiesca said he has just reacted to the battles without paying attention to the very real dangers. 

Photojournalist Ray Bribiesca

   "The quote-on-quote 'crazy shots?'" he said in a video on for "60 Minutes," "Lara Logan Under Fire." "Those are the shots that when I see combat I always say, 'What does the face look like?'"

   Lara Logan, the "60 Minutes" CBS News chief foreign correspondent who traveled with Bribiesca to the Afghani-Pakistani border for the segment, recalled in the video that Bribiesca didn't get back in the truck during an ambush attack in a dried riverbed. 

   "You are literally being lurched from side to side, smashing your head [in the truck]," Logan said. "The tension is building, building, building, and you're just waiting for it."

   It happened when shots were fired soon after the truck had been pulled off a boulder. While Logan said she ran for cover, Bribiesca calmly stood outside with the soldiers looking for the best shots, effectively putting himself in the line of enemy fire at the same time.

   "You don't think," he said to the students. "You just react to that [scene] as a cameraperson. That's all you're thinking about ... not of anything else." 

   He said he is aware of the dangers involved in his job, but it doesn't deter Bribiesca from capturing the real stories.

   "We as journalists think we're invincible, [like] "No one can hurt me,'" he said. "You're wrong."

   While serving in Vietnam as a combat cameraman, Bribiesca was injured twice and taken hostage once.

   After his last story, a segment for CBS on Yemen, where he and Logan will travel to tell the story, Bribiesca plans to retire. Bribiesca even had his camera and equipment in the car ready to go after speaking to the students.

   "You're only as good as your last story," Briebiesca said. "As a journalist, I listen [and] I watch, because everyone has a good story to tell."

   Having worked for 46 years as a journalist, he told the student journalist his job has always required complete dedication.

   "Doing this took me years," Bribiesca said. "But that's another story..."

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.

Cate Main Cafe rocks hard, folks

Study: Despite increased state funding, many Okla. freshmen aren't returning for second year

   The Tulsa World published this story today saying many freshmen do not return to college after their first year in Oklahoma, despite state expenditures in the last five years totaling more than $130 million on these very students.
   The recent report comes from the American Institutes of Research, with page 13 showing Oklahoma's general spending on first-year students that comprise state and federal grants and appropriations. Further, the report's introduction on page 4 shows that both state and federal grants to these students are quickly rising.
   According to the World, research universities like OU and OSU are most successful at second-year retention, the state has about a 30-percent overall retention rate that's near the national rate.

LGBTQ programs seek to increase campus visibility for community

Photo: The rainbow flag, a symbol of LGBTQ pride, waves through an opened door that was constructed at the National Coming Out Day resource and information fair Monday on the South Oval.
Audio clip: LGBTQ Advisory Board member Bobby Mace talks about the board's programs this month. Monday's National Coming Out Day fair (which he discusses in this clip) is the first the group has organized, and worked with other campus/community groups to co-host events throughout October.

   OU's LGBTQ community will recognize National Coming Out Day Monday morning with a resource and information fair for students on the South Oval, starting OU's observance of Norman's GLBT History Month.

   The program, which lasts from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., is the first National Coming Out Day program that the Student Affairs' Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) Advisory Board has planned for the nationally annual event, during which closeted students are positively encouraged to come out.

   The National Coming Out Day resource fair is one of the several events the board has planned with other campus groups in October. Future programs include booked Sooner Ally trainings on Tuesday and Nov. 6, a candlelight vigil for LGBTQ acceptance on Wednesday and a showing of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" on Friday, Oct. 29. 

Audio Clip: Mace says how organizations should 

reach out to all students on campus.

   This month's LGBTQ programs come on the heels of UOSA and the Norman City Council both passing proclamations last month declaring October to be GLBT History Month. According to the Oklahoma Daily, Student Congress passed the resolution with unanimous consent and the city council 7-1.

   The advisory board collaborated with other local organizations, including OU student organizations GLBTF, United Students and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association, to give students as many resources as possible about Coming Out Day.

   The advisory board started planning more events this year, one member said, after previous years' have lacked involvement and visibility with other groups on campus. 

   Bobby Mace, who works in the Women's Outreach Center office as an LGBTQ Affairs intern, said the program's members realized the board needed to reach out to other communities after it did a campus climate survey earlier this year.

   "So we're basically taking what the students have told us what they wanted, and doing those things," said Mace, an adult and higher education graduate student. "If you're going to program to just the students of GLBTF, then it ignores so many different groups of people."

Students talk about the program with members of the LGBTQ 
Program Advisory Board at Monday's fair.

   Mace became involved in the center through the Sexperts program his sophomore year. As a then-resident adviser, he was the only openly gay employee on staff. But Mace said things have changed so much for the community since he was a freshman because there was not as much visibility on campus and the GLBTF student organization was more divided. 

   "We've just been doing so much in this past semester alone that the change from my freshman year to now ... it wouldn't even seem like the same universe to me," he said.
   Mace said it is especially important for all campus organizations to meet students' needs when they are in college. To accomplish this vision of improving overall student life, the advisory board has specific goals that reach the entire OU community, like more visibility and programming.

   "It's obviously important that we [in the LGBTQ community] recognize our allies, because without our allies, we obviously wouldn't have a lot going on for us at OU," he said."I know that doesn't really seem like a way to get people to realize, but having the increased visibility and the increased programming on campus really does help people to realize that OU is a safe place."

   Mace said he has already contacted more than 40 student groups to get involved with Wednesday's candlelight vigil, which will be in the Unity Garden on the South Oval.

Updated: Monday at 6:30 p.m. with photos of Monday's National Coming Out Day resource fair.

Current list of student organizations

Check it out: Student Organizations Coordinator Carmen Bao sent this link today of the list of current student orgs. on OU's campus.
There are 432 different organizations for interested students to choose from.

Marching band takes Sooner Pride to Texas

Pride Director Brian Britt conducts the students as they practice their OU-Texas field show Wednesday, Sept. 29.

Britt said during rehearsals to the band: "It's like when you bowl: Sometimes it's a strike, sometimes it's not. That time it wasn't."

   As thousands of crimson and cream-colored fans descend onto Dallas this weekend for the OU-Texas game, more than 300 Sooners — members of the marching band Pride of Oklahoma will bring their OU spirit to the Red River Rivalry for the first away game of the season.

   The Pride, which performs about six shows each season, will play music from movies including “The Mummy Returns,” “The Incredibles” and “King Kong” at the pre-game and half-time shows.

Pride members load sound equipment onto the trailer Thursday.

   The band practices two hours a day four days a week — on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, as well as on game days before games start. 

   Pride Director Brian Britt said the show is going to be exciting this year for the crowd to watch, because the show always has something for everyone.

   “We do a little bit of everything, just to try to reach a different part of the fan base if we can,” Britt said. “I think [the music] is stuff that will be inspirational to the people that watch and listen to what we're doing, and the students seem to really enjoy performing it.”
   But while freshman Kevin Price is most looking forward to the Texas state fair corn dogs this weekend, he said the energy of the music is what makes this show his favorite so far. 
   “It's just really fast-paced,” said Price, who plans to be a computer science major and plays the cymbals for the drumline. Price said he joined the Pride because he wanted to keep playing percussion after high school.

   One of the drumline section leaders Shanna Hestilow said unlike in high school, all the students in the Pride work to make the shows sound as good as they can be.

Senior Shanna Hestilow practices "The Incredibles" 
music with her section Wednesday.

   “In college, everyone that's in Pride auditioned and wants to be here, and is making an effort to do well,” said Hestilow, an international/area studies senior. “[The band] takes up so much of your life, that it develops this bond between people — you're appreciating music and appreciating art and spending time doing that.”
   Hestilow said this hard work pays off at games for the students when they perform for thousands of Sooner fans. 
   “Traveling to away games like we do ... you can tell the difference that we make in the football team and in the crowd and in the way people react to [the music],” she said. 
   But the OU-Texas games are always the most interesting — to say the least — English junior Jon Lowry said.

   “You can hear the cheers and everything from our side, and as we go to the other side it’s just heavy boos and everything from the Texas fans. So you really get to feel the rivalry,” Lowry said. 

   A trumpet player for the Pride since he came to OU, Lowry said he has loved performing at games since his first show.

   “It's as close to a rock star as I'm ever going to be,” he said.
   The Pride of Oklahoma's next away game is at Texas A&M on Nov. 11.