Several days ago Nate Silver wrote the following:”[…] as President Trump delivered his State of the Union address1, the Wall Street Journal reported that ABC News would lay off the remaining staff at 538 as part of broader cuts within corporate parent Disney. Having been through several rounds of this before, including two years ago when the staff was cut by more than half and my tenure expired too2, I know it’s a brutal process for everyone involved. It’s also tough being in a business while having a constant anvil over your head, as we had in pretty much every odd-numbered (non-election) year from 2017 onward at 538/FiveThirtyEight.3 I don’t know all of the staffers from the most recent iteration of the site, but the ones I have met or who I overlapped with are all extremely conscientious and hard-working people and were often forced to work double-duty as jobs were cut but frequently not replaced. My heart goes out to them, and I’m happy to provide recommendations for people I worked with there.“
And with that ended an era. An era of some of the most transparent, unbiased, aggregated political data reporting anywhere at any time. 538 has revolutionized the polling reporting and added more depth and guidance to understanding it than anyone ever.
Now, it died almost without notice on the altar of Disney’s politics and corporate greed. 538 made up less than 2% of Disney’s overall employees but was nearly a third of the jobs cut at ABC. When your business is fiction, facts do not matter.
RIP 538