Nate Silver Criticizes ABC News Over FiveThirtyEight Archive Deletion
On Friday, Nate Silver expressed his frustration with ABC News, referring to his former employer as “a bunch of a-holes” following the network’s decision to remove the entire archive of his now-defunct site, FiveThirtyEight.
Silver, known for his data-driven approach and statistical modeling, became a prominent figure by accurately forecasting outcomes in politics, including the 2008 presidential election and various Senate races. He described ABC News executives as “a bunch of idiots” in this context, underscoring his dissatisfaction.
His comments came after a colleague from FiveThirtyEight, Nathaniel Rakic, shared his own disappointment about the situation on social media. Silver replied directly to Rakic, explicitly tagging @ABC in his post, which made it clear where his ire was aimed.
In a follow-up message, he revealed that he had attempted to reacquire the FiveThirtyEight intellectual property from ABC but was rebuffed. “Honestly, what a hole,” he remarked, further suggesting that the decision-making at ABC might be costing Disney shareholders significantly.
The situation was confirmed by Rakic, who noted that all articles from FiveThirtyEight were being taken offline, redirecting readers to ABC’s general politics page. This move, he argued, erased a wealth of knowledge needlessly.
FiveThirtyEight, founded by Silver in 2008, gained fame as a prediction blog, primarily focusing on elections. Notably, in 2012, Silver predicted the results of all 50 states and Washington, D.C., correctly. Over the years, the brand has undergone several ownership changes, moving from The New York Times to ESPN and then to ABC News under Disney’s umbrella.
Silver departed from ABC in 2023 amid significant layoffs that impacted FiveThirtyEight’s newsroom. At the time, ABC announced plans to keep the FiveThirtyEight brand but Silver warned that the job cuts would drastically affect it.
After his exit, the site was incorporated into ABC’s political content, leading to the eventual retirement of the standalone FiveThirtyEight website. This past March, further layoffs led Disney to close its remaining operations related to FiveThirtyEight.
