“Nate Silver in Conversation with NY1’s Pat Kiernan” on the YP Stage on Day 1 of Internet Week New York May 18, 2015. INSIDER IMAGES/Gary He (from Wikipedia)
FiveThirtyEight, the political predictions and observations website run by Nate Silver, may very well be in danger of closure. It has been reported that parent company ABC is considering shuttering the famed blog for financial reasons, reported the Daily Beast.
Nate Silver is a famed statistician and his FiveThirtyEight gained prominence by using statistics and in depth scientific research to accurately predict the results of elections. But in 2016, the site was criticized when it predicted a victory for Hilary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential elections. FiveThirtyEight, however, countered that the final results were all within its margins of error.
Now, as the Daily Beast points out, FiveThirtyEight has not bothered to fill important positions that were left open after people exited the business. And Nate Silver himself has spoken about finding a buyer.
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“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 The Daily Beast’s 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.”
First launched in 2008 under a different name, FiveThirtyEight says its mission is to use data and evidence to advance public knowledge — adding certainty where we can and uncertainty where we must. It was acquired by ESPN in 2013 for its sports content. ESPN is owned by ABC, which is, in turn, owned by Disney.
Nate Silver is an American statistician, writer, and poker player who analyzes sports and politics for a living. A student of economics, Silver began his career as an economic consultant. He later moved on to doing baseball analysis as a writer for Baseball Prospectus.
