US Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight Are on ABC’s Chopping Block - In this week’s edition of Confider, we report how ABC News is considering offloading the star data journalist and his famed website.

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Famed statistics guru Nate Silver and his website FiveThirtyEight are on the “chopping block,” Confider has learned, as ABC News looks to cut costs.

A decision on the future of the famed politics, economics, and sports analysis website is set to be made by the summer when Silver’s contract is up, multiple people with knowledge of the situation told us.

The oft-combative Silver, who has come under renewed scrutiny for his site’s polling selections, now faces an uncertain future as news division boss Kim Godwin reviews the publication, which has never turned a profit.

FiveThirtyEight has not backfilled key positions, including that of managing editor (Micah Cohen exited last year for data site Stacker), politics editor (Sarah E. Frostenson defected to The Washington Post), and sports editor (Sara Ziegler was poached by The New York Times).

Insiders lamented to Confider that ABC’s lack of enthusiasm in building a subscription business around FiveThirtyEight has been a “missed opportunity” that could have turned the site into a moneymaker for Disney.

But instead, ABC may look to offload the publication.

This wouldn’t be the first time a FiveThirtyEight acquisition has been discussed: In 2017, Silver held talks with both The Atlantic and The Athletic about a sale, two people familiar with the situation told us.

Questions over FiveThirtyEight’s future come as Silver faces public criticism for his reliance on polls that inaccurately predicted a “red wave” in the midterm elections.

“There’s no question in my mind that FiveThirtyEight was used by partisan sources to create a false impression of the election and that Nate was aware this was happening and by not addressing it he ended up contributing to misleading the American people about what was happening in the election,“ Democratic strategist and former ABC News producer Simon Rosenberg told Confider. “This is an existential threat to FiveThirtyEight. If he refuses to make significant reforms and changes the political elite should move on to other sources to get information about polling.”

Silver did not respond to a request for comment, but an ABC News spokesperson texted Confider: “There are no imminent decisions about our relationship with 538.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nate-silver-and-fivethirtyeight-are-on-abcs-chopping-block (Archive)
 
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Didn't Nate Bronze predict that Ohio, Florida, and Texas were going to go blue back in 2020 when all three went decisively for Trump? I'd rather trust a Magic-8 Ball than this retard when it comes to predicting elections. Unfortunately the GOPe seems to hold him in high regard, though, as they've wasted millions of dollars in otherwise safe states while throwing candidates like Blake Masters/Kari Lake under the bus.
 
Nate only is famous bc of his Obama prediction. NEWSFLASH: he had a 50 percent chance of being right.

John McCain was the repub's designated villain for many years. His whole career is just being the bad guy so the republicans can cancel legislation they don't like while appearing to work for the party's goals.
 
“There’s no question in my mind that FiveThirtyEight was used by partisan sources to create a false impression of the election and that Nate was aware this was happening and by not addressing it he ended up contributing to misleading the American people about what was happening in the election,“ Democratic strategist and former ABC News producer Simon Rosenberg told Confider. “This is an existential threat to FiveThirtyEight. If he refuses to make significant reforms and changes the political elite should move on to other sources to get information about polling.”
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This fucking Goy dared yield certain leeway to those outside our goals, this kind of defiance is unacceptable!
 
Town Crier said:
Didn't Nate Bronze predict that Ohio, Florida, and Texas were going to go blue back in 2020 when all three went decisively for Trump? I'd rather trust a Magic-8 Ball than this retard when it comes to predicting elections. Unfortunately the GOPe seems to hold him in high regard, though, as they've wasted millions of dollars in otherwise safe states while throwing candidates like Blake Masters/Kari Lake under the bus.
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He got every race for national/gubernatorial positions except one right in 2012 (the most predictable election in recent American history), let it completely go to his head and act like a celebrity, and then got completely blindsided by 2016 (like everyone else, tbh), but refused to update his model.
The only part of 538 that was even remotely worthwhile for statistical prediction was the sports section, and only because sports predictors generally understand it's all a crapshoot made to drive up fanboy arguments for clicks.
 
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I only remember him for the 2016 election with that priceless look of defeat with his hair on the side.
 
Nate Silver’s expertise was massively overhyped. He captured the zeitgeist well in 2008: used social media to explain that the clean cut black man was going to win over a decrepit white woman everyone hated and an old crank that was sent out to fail because the outgoing president fucked everything up. After that election, Silver has fucked everything else up. At this point he’s been passed around by just about every major news outlet. I guess it was just ABC’s turn to dump him. At this point he’s been with New York Times, Vox, and CNN. I guess that leaves Washington Post, NBC, CBS, and Fox.
 
Town Crier said:
Didn't Nate Bronze predict that Ohio, Florida, and Texas were going to go blue back in 2020 when all three went decisively for Trump? I'd rather trust a Magic-8 Ball than this retard when it comes to predicting elections. Unfortunately the GOPe seems to hold him in high regard, though, as they've wasted millions of dollars in otherwise safe states while throwing candidates like Blake Masters/Kari Lake under the bus.
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Nate was proven so wrong back in 2016, he went berserk on Twitter. It was hilarious.
 
Town Crier said:
Didn't Nate Bronze predict that Ohio, Florida, and Texas were going to go blue back in 2020 when all three went decisively for Trump? I'd rather trust a Magic-8 Ball than this retard when it comes to predicting elections. Unfortunately the GOPe seems to hold him in high regard, though, as they've wasted millions of dollars in otherwise safe states while throwing candidates like Blake Masters/Kari Lake under the bus.
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I'd be unsure if that was them listening to silver but the GOPe trying to kneecap the rising amount of freedom caucus populist types. That said their efforts did make Silver's predictions a smidge more accurate
 
So who else would be willing to pick up Nate Plastic? He's been proven to be worse than literally flipping a coin since 2016.
 
Nate Silver is just Scott Adams. Both made a lucky guess they attributed to their special formula/high IQ, then tried to make a career out of it.
 
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