

Nate Silver Went Against the Grain for Some at The Times - wikiburner
http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nate-silver-went-against-the-grain-for-some-at-the-times/

======
chasing
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.

~~~
halo
>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.

How did he do that?

If anything, I would argue the opposite, because his model is proprietary and
his explanations (presumably deliberately) vague. 538 is awash with numbers
but the algorithms used to generate them are the very definition of "eye-of-
newt and other secret ingredients".

~~~
wtallis
He effectively gave us the equation and kept secret most of the coefficients
(though he explained how to choose many of those coefficients). That wouldn't
be acceptable for academic purposes, but it seems quite reasonable for
journalistic purposes (and is certainly more than any typical political
"analyst" provides). He also couldn't give out all the raw data that went into
the analyses, because much of it was stuff he had to pay for. Getting past
those paywalls and assembling a comprehensive database of polling information
is almost certainly the bulk of the work necessary for reproducing his
results.

~~~
malkia
If only the FICO score algorithm was available somewhere...

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thaumaturgy
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/pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-
to-the-white-house.html) ?)

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
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
Actually, Mike Bostock (creator of d3) has been employed by the Times for
awhile now.

~~~
kmfrk
I know. Doesn't help Silver and ESPN, though. :)

------
_delirium
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
"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.

~~~
danso
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"

~~~
foobarqux
> 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?

~~~
danso
The position is generally given to a veteran journalist...Sullivan was
formerly the editor of the Buffalo News. So to answer your question, she, and
others before her, aren't likely to launch bombs at the NYT because like most
members of a group, you have enough experience to know that controversies are
more complicated underneath the surface.

So no, they're not going to hire someone who is either actively bent on
discrediting the newspaper...because that would imply the newspaper execs
believe that the newspaper is something to be destroyed. The position is meant
to be one that _improves_ the newspaper and its accountability to the readers.
Many of her columns raise questions and doubts about Times' coverage, but the
expectation is that this makes the newsroom a better place...similar to how
transparency in government ostensibly makes it better in the long run.

But, on the other hand, if Sullivan became the David Souter of the Times...she
would be for all intents and purposes, difficult to fire without creating a
shitstorm. I'm not sure what's in the NYT's actual 4-year-contract with her,
but barring her committing some journalistic crime (like plagiarism), it's not
likely she can be removed for the content of her criticism.

~~~
foobarqux
The position is given to someone that is sympathetic to corporate journalism,
it has nothing to do with being a "veteran". And the fact that "complicated"
issues, as defined of course by someone employed by the NYT, are off-limits
just serve to bolster my point. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly all of
the important criticisms are dead simple. Why are the main issues raised by
serious media critics, like systemic bias and corporate influence, never
raised by the public editor?

The intent of _real_ criticism is to improve the actual role of the newspaper
in relation to the public. The NYT doesn't hire people who do _real_ criticism
because real accountability to the public isn't the main incentive of the NYT:
revenue and power relations are. The illusion of accountability is necessary,
which is why they have the public editor in the first place, because otherwise
people wouldn't buy their products, be influenced by their messages and see
their ads.

It is the height of absurdity to believe that someone who gets paid by an
organization would be unbiased in its criticism of it or that they would act
in the interests of a third party, in this case the public, from whom they
receive no direct benefit.

------
mjn
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?

~~~
jamesaguilar
Traditionally, but not recently. Sports has been very focused on statistics
for at least the last decade, probably longer. Most large sports organizations
have dedicated statistics departments and make many of their decisions based
on the same.

~~~
mjn
That's a good point. I was thinking more about sports _commentary_ , rather
than what happens in the teams themselves, but it's true that teams have been
all over statistics for years. I do think commentators, perhaps conscious of
their role as public faces of an entertainment product, have been more
resistant to statistics-driven commentary, and have instead played up horse-
race type narratives.

~~~
jamesaguilar
To be fair, when you're watching the game, horse-race commentary is just
straight up more fun to hear. I love hearing a radio announcer just get
excited about what's happening. However, even live, they do throw in some
statistics. Admittedly, these are the sort of post-hoc statistics that aren't
good for anything (e.g. "they win 90% of their away games that fall on
Friday").

Offline, fans of some sports are almost exclusively about statistics and
numbers. Baseball is famous for this.

------
jaggederest
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
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.

------
eieio
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.

------
RockyMcNuts
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_n...](http://editors.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2013/07/whyd_nate_silver_leave_the_times.php)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-e...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2012/11/09/why-
espn-is-the-worlds-most-valuable-media-property-and-worth-40-billion/)

------
Aqueous
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.

------
Yossarian_Lives
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.

------
Zimahl
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?

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

------
danso
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
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
National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting

[http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-
nicar...](http://www.ire.org/resource-center/listservs/subscribe-nicar-l/)

~~~
SkyMarshal
Thanks!

------
grandalf
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.

------
gdulli
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.

------
metaphorm
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.

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

~~~
encoderer
Because it's owned by ABC, which will host his election coverage..

~~~
kanamekun
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!

------
mooneater
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?

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gojomo
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?

------
undoware
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?

