Off to ESPN, Nate Silver Is Said to Have Been a Bad 'Fit' at The New York Times
ESPN made it official today: Nate Silver will be joining the team in Bristol, Conn., to build his FiveThirtyEight into a juggernaut of data and analysis for the most stat-obsessed sports and politics watchers out there. But as that news went out Margaret Sullivan, The New York Times public editor, revealed some juicy gossip about how the statistician was viewed by the "traditional and well-respected" reporters on the politics desk of the Grey Lady.
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After more than a year of negotiations, Silver will build a new team of journalists, editors, analysts and contributors at ESPN, and FiveThirtyEight will return to its original URL as part of the ESPN family. Like many guessed, they're going to use Grantland as the model for building a separate operation within the larger Walt Disney-owned organization:
Grantland's a model for what new 538 will look like. Independent editorial point-of-view. We'll be doing some hiring, building a great team.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) July 22, 2013
Remember, Grantland publisher David Cho was a big part of the drive to land Silver and Grantland editor-in-chief Bill Simmons helped lure him to the Worldwide Leader, too.
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But that's news for the future. We want to know what facilitated his exit from The Times, where he was seemingly happy up until the moment we knew he was bailing for ESPN. "I don’t think Nate Silver ever really fit into the Times culture," Sullivan wrote today. The Times' Brian Stelter alluded to "tension" within the newsroom during Silver's tenure with the Grey Lady. Some downplayed the initial theories about what that could have meant. But Sullivan says Silver's level-headed, rational statistical analysis regularly clashed with the traditional reporting from the Times' political desk. Three "well-respected" Times employees were apparently vocal detractors:
A number of traditional and well-respected Times journalists disliked his work. The first time I wrote about him I suggested that print readers should have the same access to his writing that online readers were getting. I was surprised to quickly hear by e-mail from three high-profile Times political journalists, criticizing him and his work. They were also tough on me for seeming to endorse what he wrote, since I was suggesting that it get more visibility.
The hunt for the identities of the Anti-Silver Three has already begun. Meanwhile, Silver spoke out on Twitter for the first time since the news of his move broke and only had nice things to say about executive editor Jill Abramson and his time at The Times:
There are lots of amazing people in the NYT newsroom. I will miss them. I greatly admire the job that Jill Abramson is doing.
— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) July 22, 2013
ESPN is holding a conference call at 3:30 p.m. and we'll be a part of it. We will have more updates around that time.
