4 ms·
They've hated him ever since he spoiled the 2008 primary for them. Nate has said he started following politics because of poker, but he started the 538 blog bec
by adastra 14y ago
They've hated him ever since he spoiled the 2008 primary for them. Nate has said he started following politics because of poker, but he started the 538 blog because of the Hillary vs. Obama primary.
The news media were still touting it as a close horse race when Nate knew that it was already over. Obama already had enough delegates that it was almost impossible for him to lose. He saw it as blatant deception on the part of the news media as a way to sell more newspapers. When he pointed this out, he just flat out embarrassed them.
I really miss the original 538 blog. Nate would give snarky commentary on whatever the political news of the day was. Now that he works for the NY Times all he does is crunch the numbers. It's not nearly as entertaining.
- mayneack 14y agoHis twitter is more snarky like the old blog. Might change a bit since the NYT said he shouldn't be making bets with Scarborough
- zecho 14y agoHe's not an employee of the NY Times, per se, though, and I don't think he's bound to their reporter's rules. He licenses the 538 brand to the Times (similar to the deal Freakonomics got).
- mayneack 14y agoYeah, but they can still exert pressure on him.
- rhizome 14y agoThe Times derives much more benefit from the association than he does.
- adastra 14y agoI think whatever the relationship, it's clear he no longer comments on anything that isn't directly poll-related. Someone is telling him to "stay in his lane" and he's doing it. His pieces are all long, detailed poll analyses. Nate could be pretty hilarious in print. I want the old short snarky articles back.
- pixelmonkey 14y agoSmall pet peeve of mine -- "per se" means "in itself". So, if you read back your sentence, "He's not an employee of the NY Times, in itself", you'll realize this is an improper usage. It's popular to mis-use "per se" when you mean "necessarily", as in, "she's not my girlfriend, per se", but this is not correct, either. I expect this is how you meant it -- "he's not really an employee of NY Times, he's more like a contractor". Here's an appropriate use of "per se": "An aggressive psychological interrogation, per se, is not torture. It only becomes torture when it causes physical harm or lasting psychological trauma to the prisoner." <-- note, this is just a language example, not a statement of my position :)
- lazugod 14y ago> He's not an employee of the NY Times, himself. His work is contracted by them. Why wouldn't it be parsed as that?