Category Archives: Matt Baron in the News

My 8th Round of “A Beer With Baron”: Forensic Accountant & Filmmaker Kelly Richmond Pope

Nearly three years ago, my interviews of local Oak Park notables for the village’s local cable access channel shifted gears. While I have continued the Q & A format that encompassed my smattering of segments dating back to 2009, the program’s alliterative hook has gone from “Oak Park’s Own” to “A Beer With Baron.” In […]

To the Marshfield High School Class of ’86, Friends with Abundant Heart: ‘See You Later’

About 1:30 a.m. this past Sunday, two patches of 40-somethings clustered in the parking lot outside The Marshfield Tavern in my hometown on Boston’s South Shore: four women and four men. “Can you take a picture of us?” a woman asked. Three of the men swung into action, each taking photos while the other (that […]

“Go Figure: Making Numbers Count” Goes Back to School

Last week marked the debut of a website for a longtime, favored client (myself): Go Figure: Making Numbers Count, which also doubles as my Facebook page for Go Figure.  I have been specializing in numeracy (mathematical literacy) for nearly two decades–going back to my time as a syndicated columnist (“By the Numbers”) with Copley News Service in the […]

Without Vision, Your Future is Numbered

The willingness to take risks, to try something new–and to appear foolish in the process–is a powerful differentiator in life. Because so many others will opt to “play it safe,” it doesn’t take too much to stand out from the crowd. So on the 16th anniversary of the debut of my “By the Numbers” column appearing in […]

Free Throw Shooting (And Tracking) Zeal Garners Local Media Coverage

As circumstances have played out, this post represents the second consecutive basketball-related piece. Fortunately, this one has a much happier, benign thrust than the prior story about my long-ago interactions with, and writing about, the late, could-have-been-so-great Len Bias. Just a brief mention here of my ambidextrous free throw-shooting zeal, as chronicled by fellow Oak […]

`Oak Park’s Own’ Returns, With Interviews of Jeanette Fields & Marc Stopeck

Television personalities need not look out, but May has been an especially notable month in my modest local cable television journey. In 2009, Joe Kreml, the Village of Oak Park’s award-winning TV Manager approached me with the idea of hosting a segment called “Oak Park’s Own.” We shot three interviews in a seven-month span: two subjects […]

`PR Secrets From a Media Insider’ Returns Feb. 8th

“PR Secrets from a Media Insider” is back. My 90-minute workshop, which demystifies how to communicate with the media and empowers organizations to secure coverage for their causes, returns with three sessions over the next three months. The first one is Wednesday, Feb. 8, at 1111 South Blvd. in Oak Park (directly south of the […]

Bidding Farewell to August–And My Calendar Debut, Thanks to Next Door Multimedia

Happy new month, even if it means yours truly is no longer receiving as much exposure on calendars throughout the Oak Park-River Forest-Forest Park area. For 31 days, some 5,000 calendars in the area displayed my alter ego from late 2009, Super Shopper Spotter. It was a character I developed for the “Shop the Village” […]