A few years ago, I offered counsel to a suburban Chicago company that was eager to build a public relations-and-marketing campaign around one big, blowout event in the city. But there was one big, blowout problem, as I saw it then and see it even more clearly today. Without a high-profile celebrity or some other […]
Exactly a week ago, my kids got an unexpected treat at Pump It Up in Elmhurst. As it happened, last Monday was their 8th birthday, and the trip was a last-minute addition in an already-crowded day of activity for my wife. As she filled out the admission form for the duo, she mentioned that she was not suffering […]
Pasadena Star News, December 27, 2002 by Larry Wilson HERE at Star-News world headquarters on fabulous Colorado Boulevard, which any day now will be teeming with Cougars and Sooners, but currently is blissfully quiet in that eye of the storm between Christmas and New Year’s, we were treated to a math seminar this week by […]
Published July 1, 2002 in Corporate Writer & Editor by Mike Haney “The small staff we have are not really numbers people,” says John Blake, editor of Mass Mutual’s employee magazine, M. “We prefer words instead of numbers.” Sound familiar? Many writers shy away from using numbers in their stories, fearing they will confuse both […]
– Published in Sun Publications October 23, 2002 By Tom Parisi Every so often, when I’m feeling psychic, I plunk down a few bucks on the Illinois Lottery. I’ll play my kids’ birthdays and dream about what to do with mounds of money. It’s a nice daydream for a dollar. But I don’t play the […]
– Medill School of Journalism July 27, 2000 By Deborah Cassell, MSJ00 Other than advances in technology, not much has changed in 15 years, according to 1985 graduates of Medill’s portion of Northwestern’s “Cherub” program. Students are still writing news and trend stories. They’re still “rotating rewrites” — editing each others’ work until it is […]
-The Star Newspapers December 15, 2002 By Joe Takash Did you know that when you turn 31 years, 8 months and 8 days old, you’ve lived 1 billion seconds? You probably didn’t, but this is the stuff that excites Matt Baron. By the time Baron was 10 years old, he recognized that he had a […]
originally published on mediabistro.com Age:37 Location: Oak Park, Illinois and online What’s the latest thing you’ve worked on? Almost all of my freelance writing is for the Chicago Tribune, and lately, in addition to my coverage of three communities and assorted breaking news, I have been reporting on the mysterious murder of an associate professor […]
By Steve Buttry, Oct 12, 2004 originally published on notrain=nogain.org If you, or some journalists you coach, have trouble using numbers, or words that act as surrogates for numbers, perhaps you should “Go Figure.” Matt Baron, a freelance writer and trainer, provides help for mathematically challenged journalists through his “Go Figure” workshops and columns. You […]
Earlier this month, I received a hand-written thank you note in the mail from an undergraduate at Northwestern University, my alma mater. That was impressive. The personally written, but hardly personalized letter from a Northwestern undergraduate. Then I read the note – and if it wasn’t a verbatim transcription of a form letter, then I […]