Nate Silver Out At ABC News Due To Disney Layoffs

538’s Nate Silver is out at ABC News as Disney has carried out the second wave of its planned 7,000-employee workforce slash.

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Via: The Hollywood Reporter:
The second round of Disney layoffs once again hit ABC News on Tuesday, with Nate Silver’s data-driven politics and journalism brand FiveThirtyEight among those being impacted.

Silver told FiveThirtyEight employees in a Slack message that he expects to leave Disney when his contract is up, which he added would be “soon,” The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Nate Silver later confirmed the report:

ABC is keeping the 538 brand, but letting Silver walk.

Nate Silver’s brand of data-driven political analysis has taken a hit since polling in general has had to deal with several issues. There are many factors for the struggles of polling which include COVID, respondents not being honest with pollsters, difficulty in handling and modeling a shifting electorate, and other shifts and changes that pollsters are trying to catch up with.

A model is only as good as its data. Like other jilted corporate media types, Silver will likely head over to Substack or some other venture of his own. The fallout from the pandemic and the changing habits of media consumers is still rippling through the industry but will be strange to see 538 without Nate Silver.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association