7 ms·

Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times

102 points by wikiburner 13y ago

_delirium 13y ago
Meta comment: the institutionalized role of the "public editor" as a kind of quasi-independent internal advocate for the interests of the public has fascinated me for a while. They generally have no real power, but are given a platform and considerable independence, and are supposed to help hold newspapers to their stated interest in informing the public, with an expectation that they will be critical to some degree. So they can write posts like this, which normally would only come from outside sniping, but with better internal access to sources, and an officially sanctioned platform. I've on occasion wondered if it would be beneficial for companies in other fields to adopt such a role. Could Google regain some trust and goodwill if it appointed a "public editor" with a suitably credible background, a degree of independence, and a mandate to advocate for the public interest?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  "Public editor" is basically a particular incarnation of ombudsman. One thing common to ombudsman roles is that they're powerless and routinely ignored. They're the equivalent of "We are taking this seriously.", a meaningless gesture designed to distract and obfuscate. The people who take such roles are simply pawns.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    I think this is a needlessly cynical take on the issue, especially in the context of a news disseminating organization like the NYT. The purpose of the public editor is not necessarily to change anything, but to give some insight into the machinery of the news process. Unlike ombudspersons (yeah, went there), they do not need to be heeded to be effective at their role, which is to give the audience context to evaluate the news.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      The New York Times Public Editor position was explicitly referred to by the New York Times as an ombudsman[1][2], and it was created in response to a massive ethics scandal. The role has nothing to do with giving the public "context". [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/business/media/31PAPE.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/business/media/31PAPE.html [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/us/the-times-chooses-veteran-of-magazines-and-publishing-as-its-first-public-editor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/us/the-times-chooses-veter...
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Fair enough. I should have said, "The purpose I see them as being useful for," and it's not fair for me to criticize your position on that basis.
  - danso 13y ago
    Sorry, but I have to call this out as blanket, misguided and uninformed criticism. I've been a frequent reader of the Times ombudsman in the 10 or so years since it was put in place after the Jayson Blair scandal. Sullivan has been the most incisive, most responsive of all the ombudsmen so far. You're right that the position is toothless...she has no ability to fire people or allocate resources of her own. What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired. She's like an internal affairs cop (who themselves have limited direct power) but who is guaranteed a spot in print and on web in America's biggest paper. What other companies have such a position? If you're thinking, "X tech company who got hacked and wrote a lovely apology letter about it"...well, then you thoroughly misunderstand the public editor's province. Her equivalent at tech company X would be someone who interviewed the engineers who fucked up and then put their names and quotes into print...not someone who does PR apologetics for the company. She was among the first under the Times masthead to point out that their incoming CEO had some major problems and to say what many were privately thinking. No, she didn't get him fired or removed...but again, that's not her purview. Her role is to raise awareness and stir the pot in a way that most people internally will never do. She is most certainly not a "pawn"
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      > uninformed And yet, your comment provides no relevant information I didn't already possess. Shocking that two people with identical knowledge can reach different conclusions, isn't it?
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      > What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired. Do you really think a corporation would allow serious injury to come to its reputation especially when its reputation is critical to its business? Do you think if the public editor starting leveling serious critique at the NYT in the vein of FAIR, Media Lens or Chomsky they would retain their position? Do you think the NYT would ever appoint members of those organizations as public editors?
      - 13y ago
- danbmil99 13y ago
  Interesting idea, but I think public companies just don't have the culture for this level of self-criticism. The job would inevitably become corrupted somehow, subject to spin and influence from the powers within the company. I think what should be happening is that investigative journalists in the financial sector should do a better job of finding sources within public companies, who are willing to leak information about practices and policies that are against the company's publicly stated positions, and/or are hurting shareholders, employees, the environment, and so on. Example: why don't we see detailed leaks about NSA actions at the ISP's, carriers, and large web companies?
jaggederest 13y ago
I still think it's funny that the Times framed him joining them as being a huge win for him, lending him credibility, etc. The benefit to Silver was certainly money, but it was really more about the Times joining Silver than vice versa, in terms of political analysis. I'm not at all surprised he moved on - I suspect that they expected him to be grateful, when the reverse would have been more reasonable.
- wilfra 13y ago
  At the time it was a win for him. It gave him credibility, a steady paycheck and guaranteed lasting exposure at a time when he could have easily faded into obscurity after the 08 elections were over. Back then he was just a novelty with a website it looked like his 15 year old cousin built for him one weekend. And one who was going to find it very challenging to remain relevant until the next election cycle. Now he's arguably outgrown them, having become a household name to anybody who follows politics closely, become a TV personality etc - but lets not rewrite history. He definitely stood on their shoulders to get where he is today, at least for the first year or two. And this is all coming from a pretty huge fan.
chasing 13y ago
I feel like traditional pundits got pissed off because he kept wrecking their narratives. And he upset them further by turning political prognostication into something understandable by common readers -- instead of something only pointy-hatted political wizards could divine with the right amount of eye-of-newt and other secret ingredients. Anyway: The New York Times should've worked harder to keep him. They should fire Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd and put those resources into the kind of analysis Nate Silver espoused. Y'know, the "actual journalism" kind.
- ebbv 13y ago
  I couldn't agree more. My respect for the NYT is shaky and them letting Nate Silver leave while keeping the vacuous talking heads you named is just shameful.
  - criley2 13y ago
    It sounds like they made Nate an incredible offer and were willing to meet any of his demands. It sounds like they would have done anything to keep him. Their offer to him was already grating to many others at the Times, I imagine. They offered him quite the little staff, and expansion into any topic he wanted. I don't think his decision to leave was about their offer, that, or ESPN/ABC just dreamed bigger and gave him a bigger offer. Either way, I'm psyched to see that he's getting brand separation and returning to his website along with a staff and the ability to write about whatever he wants.
    - jordanb 13y ago
      I'm glad Nate walked. He was always a poor fit at the New York Times. Actually Krugman is also a poor fit. I wish he'd walk away and just keep doing what he does independently. At least then I wouldn't have to go into privacy mode to read his articles.
      - stfu 13y ago
        Absolutely agree! Kurgman is a poor fit for any media outlet that tries to appeal to a mainstream audience. It is just saddening that such a brilliant academic mind now dedicates his life to partisan punditry.
grandalf 13y ago
Nate Silver is unique because he's more rational than most people. This is why he can effectively use data to see things that the data revealed all along. So it's no surprise to me that he'd find it difficult to work for an organization like the NY Times... The NY Times was not only complicit in the Iraq war, but came out strongly against Julian Assange through a series of horrible articles. The purpose of the NY Times is to serve powerful interests and to prevent the embarrassment of powerful people. Just skimming many of the regular op-ed contributors and editorial writing gives a window into the mentality of the paper. It's coasting on past glories and continually offering a message to readers that the world is full of illegitimacy and suffering outside the US.
eieio 13y ago
Nate's work was practically the definition of "disruptive" when he started and it's been a joy to follow him over the years. As far as papers go I happen to like the NY Times, so I'm a bit sad to see him go. But I'll gladly follow him no matter where he is. This is definitely much more of a loss for the Times than for Nate. I'll be curious to see what he says about why he left. It's very easy to imagine several reasons the he found it hard to work for the Times. It was very interesting to me to see how hostile some folks were to him during the 2012 election cycle. He obviously threatened the viability of a great deal of the(mostly useless) political punditry that we see. I think it's hard to separate which parts of that hostility were conscious reactions to a perceived threat and which parts were an unconscious reaction to ideas of how the news should work. I'm sure Nate will do a great job with ESPN and I hope he likes it more than his time with the Times.
mjn 13y ago
It's interesting that he would go to a sports network over the culture clash between statistics and narrative. Sports has traditionally been extremely negative on "stats geeks", and favored narrative explanations, along with factors like "grit" and "determination" and that kind of thing. Silver's own former work in sabermetrics was a frequent target of pot-shots from ESPN commentators for years. There used to be a blog on that kind of anti-intellectualism in sports commentary (written by people who post-blog went on to write for the TV series Parks and Recreation): http://www.firejoemorgan.com/ http://www.firejoemorgan.com/ Sign of a more general change?
- chasing 13y ago
  I actually think the opposite: Sports is full of stats geeks. The whole essence of sports is statistical: Who gets how many points? Who runs faster? Who throws faster? Who's taller? Heavier? Who's highest ranked? Stories glue all of this together, but sports = stats.
  - mjn 13y ago
    I think of that as more akin to how political pundits use polls: they cite numbers, but they object to the use of statistics as an analytical tool to tie them together. The Moneyball approach in baseball was hugely controversial, as were (are?) sabermetricians like Silver trying to push predictive statistics like VORP and FIP over the more traditional descriptive statistics. Perhaps more to the point, also to challenge traditional narratives (not that different from the political horse-race narratives) of "momentum" and "choking" and "playoff runs" with statistical analysis. The above-cited Joe Morgan (ESPN commentator 1990-2010) was a famous example of ranting on air constantly about this kind of thing. One of his more notorious comments was that on-base percentage (OBP) is a stupid statistic because he doesn't like people "clogging up the basepaths". Perhaps that genre of ESPN commentator is finally on the way out.
    - icelancer 13y ago
      >Perhaps that genre of ESPN commentator is finally on the way out. There is room for both, IMO. The 40+ year old crowd are largely comprised of people who are "done learning things" (a quote my father actually told me when I told him about my baseball research), so you need to have the Joe Morgans of the world. But since all of the winning teams in baseball rely on an analytical approach, it's never been more obvious that nerds dominate the level of the sport where decisions are made. And commentators are shifting as a result of that, since it's just natural. But you do need both, often because the people in the 2nd group tend to have worse social/presentation skills than the individuals in the 1st group. No slight intended (I belong mostly in the 2nd group, for god's sake), but it is not an unfair generalization.
Aqueous 13y ago
Not surprised that political journalists at the time were so threatened by his work, since it renders what they do utterly useless, and entirely about manufacturing drama and conflict and personality narratives when the numbers tell a more complete and more accurate story.
thaumaturgy 13y ago
I was skeptical when Nate Silver first got picked up by the NY Times; I was an avid follower of his site when it was independent (during campaign years). But, the Times really did a great job of supporting his work. The infographics and visualizations and interactive graphs that they produced -- typically with D3.js, which was cool to see -- were really second-to-none. (Who can forget http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/pa... ?) Visualizations don't seem to be Nate Silver's bailiwick, so that leaves me feeling a little disappointed to see him leaving. Nate's a clever fellow though, I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with ESPN.
- kmfrk 13y ago
  He's been given the authority to do a lot of hiring, so I would honestly be surprised, if he didn't go on to hire some d3.js boffins.
  - necubi 13y ago
    Actually, Mike Bostock (creator of d3) has been employed by the Times for awhile now.
    - kmfrk 13y ago
      I know. Doesn't help Silver and ESPN, though. :)
- eieio 13y ago
  The graphic you linked is absolutely gorgeous. I had(sadly) forgotten about it and I appreciate you linking it again :) As a long time Nate follower, he is very good at posting basic graphs alongside very strong explanations of said graphs. However, he has very little skill when it comes to more creative, targeted, unique graphs like the one that you linked. However, he's a smart dude and ESPN has plenty of resources. I'm sure he'll be fine.
undoware 13y ago
Sell any NYT stock you are holding. Nate was one of the last honest things at the increasingly craven, frumpy NYT, where Occupy didn't merit coverage until the third month, and the Iraq war got the greased-rails treatment. Don't forget who has forsaken their credibility. Never forget that. It is only by remembering who has lied that we avoid future lies. Would you lend money to a bankrupt company? No? Why then do you read the NYT?
gojomo 13y ago
I wonder if the strengthening paywall at NYTimes was a factor. I hit the ESPN 'premium' wall far less often than at NYTimes. 'Grantland' has been mentioned as a model for the Silver subbrand at ESPN; are any 'Grantland' stories premium-only?
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
I really hope to see future election coverage from him; not sure how that will happen at ESPN.
- encoderer 13y ago
  Because it's owned by ABC, which will host his election coverage..
  - kanamekun 13y ago
    Definitely agree that ABC will host election coverage, and that Nate will appear on the network! But did want to mention that ESPN is 80% owned by The Walt Disney Company (which also owns ABC)... and 20% owned by Hearst. Here's the history of ESPN's ownership, from Wikipedia: "In 1984, ABC made a deal with Getty Oil to acquire ESPN. ABC retained an 80% share, and sold 20% to Nabisco. The Nabisco shares were later sold to Hearst Corporation, which still holds a 20% stake today. In 1986, ABC was purchased for $3.5 billion by Capital Cities Communications. In 1996, The Walt Disney Company purchased Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion and picked up the 80% stake in ESPN at that time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ESPN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ESPN I've met with Hearst a few times, and their executives love to mention their 20% stake in ESPN!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danso 13y ago
On the data journalism mailing list, we've had a small discussion about how Nate could be replaced by any of the other data-minded journalists...it's not because his work was simple, but Silver himself has said that his analysis is straightforward and the math is accessible...the difference is that Silver gives a damn about context and analysis In a methodological way. He definitely brings in good writing talents and a possibly unmatched inquisitiveness...but his methods and predictive analysis aren't irreplaceable. And yes, part of the draw is the brand that he's worked tirelessly to build...but this is a brand built on verifying results...I.e. being conclusively right....if the Times were to bring in another blogger who predicts the 2014 Congressional race to a T, and explains his/her methods and shows a real love for it, I'll subscribe to that blog and not give a whit about how many years of blogging they've done. Contrast this with the irreplaceable Roger Ebert. He was incomparable as a writer, but his brand was built on something very subjective...and thus, once he's gone, it's hard to justify going back to RogerEbert.com, no matter how great of critics there are to replace him. Roger's brand is based more on long-built loyalty...Silver's brand is more based on making verifiable hypotheses and being correct...time and time again.
- SkyMarshal 13y ago
  Which mailing list? There seem to be several on this topic. Also, you're probably right, there are at least three other prominent electoral college forecasters who write well, were as accurate as Nate, and who could possibly be contracted to provide the same analysis and commentary: Andrew Tannenbaum [1], Drew Linzer [2], and Sam Wang [3]. Unlike Nate, forecasting is not their primary career, but it's clearly a labor of love for them and who knows what could be worked out with the right offer. If I were in charge at the NYT I'd be starting up conversations with these and any others doing similar work, stat. [1]: http://electoral-vote.com/ http://electoral-vote.com/ [2]: http://votamatic.org/ http://votamatic.org/ [3]: http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/
  - danso 13y ago
    National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar-l/ http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar...
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
ESPN has a ton of money (about $4.69/month from every cable subscriber in the country whether they watch sports or not, $10b total revenue), a big audience, and they could put him on ABC. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Sounds like the NYT did everything they could to keep him, but against money and mass audience, prestige only takes you so far, especially when a stodgy old guard is fighting a rear guard action against you. http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/whyd_nate_silver_leave_the_times.php http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/whyd_n... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-espn-is-the-worlds-most-valuable-media-property-and-worth-40-billion/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-e...
diego_moita 13y ago
I just read Silver's book "The Signal and the Noise" and I think this makes a lot of sense. Silver never was a political junkie, as all the NYT political journalists are. He was drawn into political statistical analysis almost by accident: he saw how "noisy" the political analysis were and knew that he could do something about it. In the book he clearly shows that baseball and poker are a lot more interesting subjects for him.
- jaibot 13y ago
  Fivethirtyeight has its origins on the very-political DailyKos, where he wrote political statistical analysis under the name "poblano".
gdulli 13y ago
There are so many more inputs and outcomes to model in sports than in politics, I'm not surprised that it's a more interesting subject matter for a statistician. He never seemed too much into the wonkier side of politics. The science of predicting election outcomes may continue to be improved, but perhaps it's essentially solved in a way that sports prediction isn't.
Zimahl 13y ago
I'm not sure if people understand that Nate Silver likes sports. Under the tweed blazer and spectacles, the guy loves baseball. There are very few topics of study with more data points than baseball. Besides, there are sports 100% of the time during the year, and a US national election once every 4 (Senate and house races are boring). Seriously, it may not have been about money or fit. If someone came along and said that you could continue to code software and get paid to do it, but didn't have to work for CrushSoul, Inc., anymore AND it was in something you found insanely fun and interesting, wouldn't you do it?
mooneater 13y ago
I want to know details about how he constructs his models. At least in terms of what kinds of models he uses, what types of statistics are needed. Is it all "Bayesian"? I could not find much via google, anyone have pointers?
metaphorm 13y ago
I'm relieved actually. I've been trying for years to NOT EVER read the NYTimes but Silver's blog was so good that I had to.
Yossarian_Lives 13y ago
The sports stats on ESPN / Politics on ABC angle is hard to argue against. I like to think though that corporate parent Disney is really looking at the bigger picture here; how Silver fits into its Marvel and Star Wars acquisitions. Setting aside all creative considerations, the Avengers remains one of Hollywood's most impressive acts of longterm chutzpah, building individual franchises out of B-string characters helmed by way outta left-field director choices and bringing them all together in one film years down the line. They could, of course, rest on their laurels and churn out a triptych of Avengers movies, each with their orbiting solo films. But Disney thinks bigger than that. Picture the scene in Avengers 3 (after the credits, natch) where Galactus looms into view over Mos Eisley, Hans Solo all wtf. Turns out the next three Star Wars films have all been building to an Avengers/Star Wars merger, dragging in its wake 15 tv series, 45 ancillary films and a trail of comics so large that collectors turn collectivists in order to purchase vast communal warehouses to store their collections. As the credits roll on Star Wars/Avengers 3, we'd probably forgive Disney if the final card announced that they were following billg into philanthropy. They now account for 10% of US GDP and President Cory Booker is terrified that the gravy train is about to come off the rails and plunge the US economy into recession. BOOM. Audiences gasp. It's a post credits sequence. The camera tracks slowly through a darkened office, over a minimalist, uncluttered desk, towards a high-backed chair that's facing the wall. The phone rings. A hand reaches out to put it on speaker phone. We hear an efficient sounding secretary: "Connecting Mr Fett" and then a pause, the sound of breathing perhaps before Fett says "I'm sorry I failed you". The tension is palpable, as the chair slowly begins to rotate towards the camera. OMG. It's Nate Silver, wizard. "No no, Boba, it's all exactly as I planned it." Cue the incorporation of 538 into the Star Wars/Avengers franchise, a development freighted so subtly in the accumulated oeuvre to date that only Nate Silver's super algorithm can track and maintain a consistent canon, further fuelling a blog empire.

102 points by wikiburner 13y ago

Meta comment: the institutionalized role of the "public editor" as a kind of quasi-independent internal advocate for the interests of the public has fascinated me for a while. They generally have no real power, but are given a platform and considerable independence, and are supposed to help hold newspapers to their stated interest in informing the public, with an expectation that they will be critical to some degree. So they can write posts like this, which normally would only come from outside sniping, but with better internal access to sources, and an officially sanctioned platform. I've on occasion wondered if it would be beneficial for companies in other fields to adopt such a role. Could Google regain some trust and goodwill if it appointed a "public editor" with a suitably credible background, a degree of independence, and a mandate to advocate for the public interest?

nknighthb 13y ago
"Public editor" is basically a particular incarnation of ombudsman. One thing common to ombudsman roles is that they're powerless and routinely ignored. They're the equivalent of "We are taking this seriously.", a meaningless gesture designed to distract and obfuscate. The people who take such roles are simply pawns.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  I think this is a needlessly cynical take on the issue, especially in the context of a news disseminating organization like the NYT. The purpose of the public editor is not necessarily to change anything, but to give some insight into the machinery of the news process. Unlike ombudspersons (yeah, went there), they do not need to be heeded to be effective at their role, which is to give the audience context to evaluate the news.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    The New York Times Public Editor position was explicitly referred to by the New York Times as an ombudsman[1][2], and it was created in response to a massive ethics scandal. The role has nothing to do with giving the public "context". [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/business/media/31PAPE.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/31/business/media/31PAPE.html [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/us/the-times-chooses-veteran-of-magazines-and-publishing-as-its-first-public-editor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/us/the-times-chooses-veter...
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Fair enough. I should have said, "The purpose I see them as being useful for," and it's not fair for me to criticize your position on that basis.
- danso 13y ago
  Sorry, but I have to call this out as blanket, misguided and uninformed criticism. I've been a frequent reader of the Times ombudsman in the 10 or so years since it was put in place after the Jayson Blair scandal. Sullivan has been the most incisive, most responsive of all the ombudsmen so far. You're right that the position is toothless...she has no ability to fire people or allocate resources of her own. What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired. She's like an internal affairs cop (who themselves have limited direct power) but who is guaranteed a spot in print and on web in America's biggest paper. What other companies have such a position? If you're thinking, "X tech company who got hacked and wrote a lovely apology letter about it"...well, then you thoroughly misunderstand the public editor's province. Her equivalent at tech company X would be someone who interviewed the engineers who fucked up and then put their names and quotes into print...not someone who does PR apologetics for the company. She was among the first under the Times masthead to point out that their incoming CEO had some major problems and to say what many were privately thinking. No, she didn't get him fired or removed...but again, that's not her purview. Her role is to raise awareness and stir the pot in a way that most people internally will never do. She is most certainly not a "pawn"
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > uninformed And yet, your comment provides no relevant information I didn't already possess. Shocking that two people with identical knowledge can reach different conclusions, isn't it?
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    > What she does have in terms of power is getting to say whatever she wants, about anyone at the Times, without fear of being fired. Do you really think a corporation would allow serious injury to come to its reputation especially when its reputation is critical to its business? Do you think if the public editor starting leveling serious critique at the NYT in the vein of FAIR, Media Lens or Chomsky they would retain their position? Do you think the NYT would ever appoint members of those organizations as public editors?
    - 13y ago
danbmil99 13y ago
Interesting idea, but I think public companies just don't have the culture for this level of self-criticism. The job would inevitably become corrupted somehow, subject to spin and influence from the powers within the company. I think what should be happening is that investigative journalists in the financial sector should do a better job of finding sources within public companies, who are willing to leak information about practices and policies that are against the company's publicly stated positions, and/or are hurting shareholders, employees, the environment, and so on. Example: why don't we see detailed leaks about NSA actions at the ISP's, carriers, and large web companies?

jaggederest 13y ago

I still think it's funny that the Times framed him joining them as being a huge win for him, lending him credibility, etc. The benefit to Silver was certainly money, but it was really more about the Times joining Silver than vice versa, in terms of political analysis. I'm not at all surprised he moved on - I suspect that they expected him to be grateful, when the reverse would have been more reasonable.

wilfra 13y ago
At the time it was a win for him. It gave him credibility, a steady paycheck and guaranteed lasting exposure at a time when he could have easily faded into obscurity after the 08 elections were over. Back then he was just a novelty with a website it looked like his 15 year old cousin built for him one weekend. And one who was going to find it very challenging to remain relevant until the next election cycle. Now he's arguably outgrown them, having become a household name to anybody who follows politics closely, become a TV personality etc - but lets not rewrite history. He definitely stood on their shoulders to get where he is today, at least for the first year or two. And this is all coming from a pretty huge fan.

chasing 13y ago

I feel like traditional pundits got pissed off because he kept wrecking their narratives. And he upset them further by turning political prognostication into something understandable by common readers -- instead of something only pointy-hatted political wizards could divine with the right amount of eye-of-newt and other secret ingredients. Anyway: The New York Times should've worked harder to keep him. They should fire Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd and put those resources into the kind of analysis Nate Silver espoused. Y'know, the "actual journalism" kind.

ebbv 13y ago
I couldn't agree more. My respect for the NYT is shaky and them letting Nate Silver leave while keeping the vacuous talking heads you named is just shameful.
- criley2 13y ago
  It sounds like they made Nate an incredible offer and were willing to meet any of his demands. It sounds like they would have done anything to keep him. Their offer to him was already grating to many others at the Times, I imagine. They offered him quite the little staff, and expansion into any topic he wanted. I don't think his decision to leave was about their offer, that, or ESPN/ABC just dreamed bigger and gave him a bigger offer. Either way, I'm psyched to see that he's getting brand separation and returning to his website along with a staff and the ability to write about whatever he wants.
  - jordanb 13y ago
    I'm glad Nate walked. He was always a poor fit at the New York Times. Actually Krugman is also a poor fit. I wish he'd walk away and just keep doing what he does independently. At least then I wouldn't have to go into privacy mode to read his articles.
    - stfu 13y ago
      Absolutely agree! Kurgman is a poor fit for any media outlet that tries to appeal to a mainstream audience. It is just saddening that such a brilliant academic mind now dedicates his life to partisan punditry.

grandalf 13y ago

Nate Silver is unique because he's more rational than most people. This is why he can effectively use data to see things that the data revealed all along. So it's no surprise to me that he'd find it difficult to work for an organization like the NY Times... The NY Times was not only complicit in the Iraq war, but came out strongly against Julian Assange through a series of horrible articles. The purpose of the NY Times is to serve powerful interests and to prevent the embarrassment of powerful people. Just skimming many of the regular op-ed contributors and editorial writing gives a window into the mentality of the paper. It's coasting on past glories and continually offering a message to readers that the world is full of illegitimacy and suffering outside the US.

eieio 13y ago

Nate's work was practically the definition of "disruptive" when he started and it's been a joy to follow him over the years. As far as papers go I happen to like the NY Times, so I'm a bit sad to see him go. But I'll gladly follow him no matter where he is. This is definitely much more of a loss for the Times than for Nate. I'll be curious to see what he says about why he left. It's very easy to imagine several reasons the he found it hard to work for the Times. It was very interesting to me to see how hostile some folks were to him during the 2012 election cycle. He obviously threatened the viability of a great deal of the(mostly useless) political punditry that we see. I think it's hard to separate which parts of that hostility were conscious reactions to a perceived threat and which parts were an unconscious reaction to ideas of how the news should work. I'm sure Nate will do a great job with ESPN and I hope he likes it more than his time with the Times.

mjn 13y ago

It's interesting that he would go to a sports network over the culture clash between statistics and narrative. Sports has traditionally been extremely negative on "stats geeks", and favored narrative explanations, along with factors like "grit" and "determination" and that kind of thing. Silver's own former work in sabermetrics was a frequent target of pot-shots from ESPN commentators for years. There used to be a blog on that kind of anti-intellectualism in sports commentary (written by people who post-blog went on to write for the TV series Parks and Recreation): http://www.firejoemorgan.com/ http://www.firejoemorgan.com/ Sign of a more general change?

chasing 13y ago
I actually think the opposite: Sports is full of stats geeks. The whole essence of sports is statistical: Who gets how many points? Who runs faster? Who throws faster? Who's taller? Heavier? Who's highest ranked? Stories glue all of this together, but sports = stats.
- mjn 13y ago
  I think of that as more akin to how political pundits use polls: they cite numbers, but they object to the use of statistics as an analytical tool to tie them together. The Moneyball approach in baseball was hugely controversial, as were (are?) sabermetricians like Silver trying to push predictive statistics like VORP and FIP over the more traditional descriptive statistics. Perhaps more to the point, also to challenge traditional narratives (not that different from the political horse-race narratives) of "momentum" and "choking" and "playoff runs" with statistical analysis. The above-cited Joe Morgan (ESPN commentator 1990-2010) was a famous example of ranting on air constantly about this kind of thing. One of his more notorious comments was that on-base percentage (OBP) is a stupid statistic because he doesn't like people "clogging up the basepaths". Perhaps that genre of ESPN commentator is finally on the way out.
  - icelancer 13y ago
    >Perhaps that genre of ESPN commentator is finally on the way out. There is room for both, IMO. The 40+ year old crowd are largely comprised of people who are "done learning things" (a quote my father actually told me when I told him about my baseball research), so you need to have the Joe Morgans of the world. But since all of the winning teams in baseball rely on an analytical approach, it's never been more obvious that nerds dominate the level of the sport where decisions are made. And commentators are shifting as a result of that, since it's just natural. But you do need both, often because the people in the 2nd group tend to have worse social/presentation skills than the individuals in the 1st group. No slight intended (I belong mostly in the 2nd group, for god's sake), but it is not an unfair generalization.

Aqueous 13y ago

Not surprised that political journalists at the time were so threatened by his work, since it renders what they do utterly useless, and entirely about manufacturing drama and conflict and personality narratives when the numbers tell a more complete and more accurate story.

thaumaturgy 13y ago

I was skeptical when Nate Silver first got picked up by the NY Times; I was an avid follower of his site when it was independent (during campaign years). But, the Times really did a great job of supporting his work. The infographics and visualizations and interactive graphs that they produced -- typically with D3.js, which was cool to see -- were really second-to-none. (Who can forget http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/pa... ?) Visualizations don't seem to be Nate Silver's bailiwick, so that leaves me feeling a little disappointed to see him leaving. Nate's a clever fellow though, I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with ESPN.

kmfrk 13y ago
He's been given the authority to do a lot of hiring, so I would honestly be surprised, if he didn't go on to hire some d3.js boffins.
- necubi 13y ago
  Actually, Mike Bostock (creator of d3) has been employed by the Times for awhile now.
  - kmfrk 13y ago
    I know. Doesn't help Silver and ESPN, though. :)
eieio 13y ago
The graphic you linked is absolutely gorgeous. I had(sadly) forgotten about it and I appreciate you linking it again :) As a long time Nate follower, he is very good at posting basic graphs alongside very strong explanations of said graphs. However, he has very little skill when it comes to more creative, targeted, unique graphs like the one that you linked. However, he's a smart dude and ESPN has plenty of resources. I'm sure he'll be fine.

undoware 13y ago

Sell any NYT stock you are holding. Nate was one of the last honest things at the increasingly craven, frumpy NYT, where Occupy didn't merit coverage until the third month, and the Iraq war got the greased-rails treatment. Don't forget who has forsaken their credibility. Never forget that. It is only by remembering who has lied that we avoid future lies. Would you lend money to a bankrupt company? No? Why then do you read the NYT?

gojomo 13y ago

I wonder if the strengthening paywall at NYTimes was a factor. I hit the ESPN 'premium' wall far less often than at NYTimes. 'Grantland' has been mentioned as a model for the Silver subbrand at ESPN; are any 'Grantland' stories premium-only?

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago

I really hope to see future election coverage from him; not sure how that will happen at ESPN.

encoderer 13y ago
Because it's owned by ABC, which will host his election coverage..
- kanamekun 13y ago
  Definitely agree that ABC will host election coverage, and that Nate will appear on the network! But did want to mention that ESPN is 80% owned by The Walt Disney Company (which also owns ABC)... and 20% owned by Hearst. Here's the history of ESPN's ownership, from Wikipedia: "In 1984, ABC made a deal with Getty Oil to acquire ESPN. ABC retained an 80% share, and sold 20% to Nabisco. The Nabisco shares were later sold to Hearst Corporation, which still holds a 20% stake today. In 1986, ABC was purchased for $3.5 billion by Capital Cities Communications. In 1996, The Walt Disney Company purchased Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion and picked up the 80% stake in ESPN at that time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ESPN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ESPN I've met with Hearst a few times, and their executives love to mention their 20% stake in ESPN!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

danso 13y ago

On the data journalism mailing list, we've had a small discussion about how Nate could be replaced by any of the other data-minded journalists...it's not because his work was simple, but Silver himself has said that his analysis is straightforward and the math is accessible...the difference is that Silver gives a damn about context and analysis In a methodological way. He definitely brings in good writing talents and a possibly unmatched inquisitiveness...but his methods and predictive analysis aren't irreplaceable. And yes, part of the draw is the brand that he's worked tirelessly to build...but this is a brand built on verifying results...I.e. being conclusively right....if the Times were to bring in another blogger who predicts the 2014 Congressional race to a T, and explains his/her methods and shows a real love for it, I'll subscribe to that blog and not give a whit about how many years of blogging they've done. Contrast this with the irreplaceable Roger Ebert. He was incomparable as a writer, but his brand was built on something very subjective...and thus, once he's gone, it's hard to justify going back to RogerEbert.com, no matter how great of critics there are to replace him. Roger's brand is based more on long-built loyalty...Silver's brand is more based on making verifiable hypotheses and being correct...time and time again.

SkyMarshal 13y ago
Which mailing list? There seem to be several on this topic. Also, you're probably right, there are at least three other prominent electoral college forecasters who write well, were as accurate as Nate, and who could possibly be contracted to provide the same analysis and commentary: Andrew Tannenbaum [1], Drew Linzer [2], and Sam Wang [3]. Unlike Nate, forecasting is not their primary career, but it's clearly a labor of love for them and who knows what could be worked out with the right offer. If I were in charge at the NYT I'd be starting up conversations with these and any others doing similar work, stat. [1]: http://electoral-vote.com/ http://electoral-vote.com/ [2]: http://votamatic.org/ http://votamatic.org/ [3]: http://election.princeton.edu/ http://election.princeton.edu/
- danso 13y ago
  National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar-l/ http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar...

RockyMcNuts 13y ago

ESPN has a ton of money (about $4.69/month from every cable subscriber in the country whether they watch sports or not, $10b total revenue), a big audience, and they could put him on ABC. They made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Sounds like the NYT did everything they could to keep him, but against money and mass audience, prestige only takes you so far, especially when a stodgy old guard is fighting a rear guard action against you. http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/whyd_nate_silver_leave_the_times.php http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/whyd_n... http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-espn-is-the-worlds-most-valuable-media-property-and-worth-40-billion/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-e...

diego_moita 13y ago

I just read Silver's book "The Signal and the Noise" and I think this makes a lot of sense. Silver never was a political junkie, as all the NYT political journalists are. He was drawn into political statistical analysis almost by accident: he saw how "noisy" the political analysis were and knew that he could do something about it. In the book he clearly shows that baseball and poker are a lot more interesting subjects for him.

jaibot 13y ago
Fivethirtyeight has its origins on the very-political DailyKos, where he wrote political statistical analysis under the name "poblano".

gdulli 13y ago

There are so many more inputs and outcomes to model in sports than in politics, I'm not surprised that it's a more interesting subject matter for a statistician. He never seemed too much into the wonkier side of politics. The science of predicting election outcomes may continue to be improved, but perhaps it's essentially solved in a way that sports prediction isn't.

Zimahl 13y ago

I'm not sure if people understand that Nate Silver likes sports. Under the tweed blazer and spectacles, the guy loves baseball. There are very few topics of study with more data points than baseball. Besides, there are sports 100% of the time during the year, and a US national election once every 4 (Senate and house races are boring). Seriously, it may not have been about money or fit. If someone came along and said that you could continue to code software and get paid to do it, but didn't have to work for CrushSoul, Inc., anymore AND it was in something you found insanely fun and interesting, wouldn't you do it?

mooneater 13y ago

I want to know details about how he constructs his models. At least in terms of what kinds of models he uses, what types of statistics are needed. Is it all "Bayesian"? I could not find much via google, anyone have pointers?

metaphorm 13y ago

I'm relieved actually. I've been trying for years to NOT EVER read the NYTimes but Silver's blog was so good that I had to.

Yossarian_Lives 13y ago

The sports stats on ESPN / Politics on ABC angle is hard to argue against. I like to think though that corporate parent Disney is really looking at the bigger picture here; how Silver fits into its Marvel and Star Wars acquisitions. Setting aside all creative considerations, the Avengers remains one of Hollywood's most impressive acts of longterm chutzpah, building individual franchises out of B-string characters helmed by way outta left-field director choices and bringing them all together in one film years down the line. They could, of course, rest on their laurels and churn out a triptych of Avengers movies, each with their orbiting solo films. But Disney thinks bigger than that. Picture the scene in Avengers 3 (after the credits, natch) where Galactus looms into view over Mos Eisley, Hans Solo all wtf. Turns out the next three Star Wars films have all been building to an Avengers/Star Wars merger, dragging in its wake 15 tv series, 45 ancillary films and a trail of comics so large that collectors turn collectivists in order to purchase vast communal warehouses to store their collections. As the credits roll on Star Wars/Avengers 3, we'd probably forgive Disney if the final card announced that they were following billg into philanthropy. They now account for 10% of US GDP and President Cory Booker is terrified that the gravy train is about to come off the rails and plunge the US economy into recession. BOOM. Audiences gasp. It's a post credits sequence. The camera tracks slowly through a darkened office, over a minimalist, uncluttered desk, towards a high-backed chair that's facing the wall. The phone rings. A hand reaches out to put it on speaker phone. We hear an efficient sounding secretary: "Connecting Mr Fett" and then a pause, the sound of breathing perhaps before Fett says "I'm sorry I failed you". The tension is palpable, as the chair slowly begins to rotate towards the camera. OMG. It's Nate Silver, wizard. "No no, Boba, it's all exactly as I planned it." Cue the incorporation of 538 into the Star Wars/Avengers franchise, a development freighted so subtly in the accumulated oeuvre to date that only Nate Silver's super algorithm can track and maintain a consistent canon, further fuelling a blog empire.