As President Donald Trump was giving his State-of-the-Union-type address on Tuesday, there was another breaking political news story.
The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Flint reported that Disney was cutting about 6% — or 200 people — from ABC News and Disney Entertainment Networks. But here’s where the political drama played out: The cuts include shutting down FiveThirtyEight, the political and data-driven news site known for its focus on election polling and predictions. It employed 15 staffers.
Thus ends a site launched in 2008 by Nate Silver, best known for its near-perfect prediction of Barack Obama’s victory in that year’s presidential election. (The site was correct in 49 of 50 states and nailed every senate race that year.)
Silver took FiveThirtyEight to The New York Times in 2010. The site, which also included sports content, moved over to ESPN in 2013 and then was moved under ABC News in 2018. Silver left his role as the top editor in 2023.
Silver tweeted late Tuesday night, “Oh geez, I just saw the news about 538. My heart goes out to the people there. They were tremendously hard-working and produced a lot of extremely valuable data and insight for everyone who wants to understand politics better. They deserved much better.”
Then, on Wednesday, Silver took to his Substack to write a few more thoughts about the end of his creation.
He wrote that “the basic issue is that Disney was never particularly interested in running FiveThirtyEight as a business, even though I think it could have been a good business. Although they were generous in maintaining the site for so long and almost never interfered in our editorial process, the sort of muscle memory a media property builds early in its tenure tends to stick. We had an incredibly talented editorial staff, but we never had enough ‘product’ people or strategy people to help the business grow and sustain itself. It’s always an uphill battle under those conditions, particularly when it comes to recruiting and retaining staff, who were constantly being poached by outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post.”
Silver also announced some near-term plans for his Silver Bulletin, including the launch of a Trump approval ratings dashboard.
But back to FiveThirtyEight. The Daily Beast’s Liam Archacki noted, “The site had been in a downturn after Silver departed and took his powerful election forecasting model with him.”
And while it did way more than predicting elections, FiveThirtyEight, like many in the polling business, has taken plenty of hits over the past several election cycles, most notably with how many were off with Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
But many still correctly argue FiveThirtyEight’s relevance.
The 19th’s Grace Panetta tweeted, “This is such a catastrophic loss not only for election journalism but also as an election data resource — can't even count the number of times I've relied on 538's polling averages, redistricting trackers, etc for my reporting.”
The New Yorker’s Clare Malone wrote in a tweet that “538 closing is a very sad end to a place that was always misunderstood by the companies that owned it.”
Chris Cillizza, the former CNN reporter who just joined NewsNation this week as a contributor, tweeted, “Idiotic. 538 is an amazing brand that does GREAT work.”
As far as FiveThirtyEight’s efforts in the sports arena, Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner wrote, “For sports fans, even though the site has not served them for some time now, the death of 538 will still hit home. For years, the site was the backbone of any analytics or stats coverage on ESPN, and podcasts like ‘Hot Takedown’ were must-listens for the data-inclined sports enthusiast. A generalist data-driven sports publication hasn’t really been replicated since. Sure, individual sports all have their places where data wonks can go and find advanced analytics and forecasts. But post-538, no site has been able to provide that for all sports — certainly not in as accessible a way as 538 was able to, at least.”
Meanwhile, the news about FiveThirtyEight wasn’t the only notable part of ABC News’ cuts.
The news magazine shows “Nightline” and “20/20” are being moved into one unit, meaning more job cuts. In addition, according to Flint’s story in the Journal, “all three hours of ‘Good Morning America’ branded shows will be consolidated under one person; previously, the third hour had a separate production team.”
Must-read story of the day
My favorite, must-read, smart piece of the day is from my colleague, TyLisa Johnson, Poynter’s audience engagement producer.
She writes about a controversial moment during a red carpet event at the Vanity Fair post-Oscars party last Sunday. Grammy-winning rapper and songwriter Megan Thee Stallion was being interviewed by podcasters Hannah Berner and Paige DeSorbo — both who initially became minor celebrities in reality show circles for appearing on Bravo’s “Summer House.”
In a poor attempt to show her affection for Megan’s music, Berner said, “Your music has literally made me, like, when I want to fight someone, I listen to your music.”
Even after Megan tried to steer Berner away from that kind of violent thinking, Berner plowed forward and said, “When people are talking (expletive), I go, ‘Turn on Megan Thee Stallion!’”
Berner has since come under heavy criticism for accusations of microaggression.
Not only does my colleague’s commentary dissect Berner’s behavior, but it digs much deeper into an alarming trend that occurs when nonjournalists — such as influencers and content creators — are put in journalist roles.
Johnson writes, “The tension comes when creators are thrust into spaces they may not have the practical training, knowledge or experience to handle. For journalists already in a newsroom, the steady drumbeat of reporting sharpens their skills, making the chaos of a celebrity interview feel like second nature when it arrives. For influencers, there’s clearly a learning curve. While influencers and creators don’t need to attach themselves to an institution to be legitimate, it is important that they develop a foundational knowledge and understanding of how ethical journalism is practiced as they spend more time navigating these spaces.”
This is just a portion of the piece that deserves your attention. Go read it now.
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