Another major round of Disney layoffs is taking place this week and once again they’re having an impact on ABC News, with FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver among those who will be leaving the network.
Silver informed FiveThirtyEight colleagues via Slack (and then posted on Twitter, shown below) that he will leave Disney once his contract is up, which he added will be “soon.”
Disney layoffs have substantially impacted FiveThirtyEight. I am sad and disappointed to a degree that’s kind of hard to express right now. We’ve been at Disney almost 10 years. My contract is up soon and I expect that I’ll be leaving at the end of it.
Advertisement— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 25, 2023
ABC News is expected to keep the FiveThirtyEight brand name, and will streamline the data journalism site for the 2024 presidential election and beyond.
“ABC News remains dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting – this streamlined structure will allow us to be more closely aligned with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond,” an ABC News spokesperson told TVNewser in a statement. “We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be departing the organization and know they will continue to make an important impact on the future of journalism.”
FiveT]hirtyEight was founded as polling aggregation website with a blog created by Silver, a renowned data analyst, in 2008. The platform was acquired by The New York Times in 2010, and purchased three years later by ESPN, where it matured into a powerhouse sports data, analytics and journalism platform.
In April 2018, after nearly five years under the ESPN brand umbrella, FiveThirtyEight moved over to ABC News in time for that year’s midterm elections.
Disney laid off several key ABC News executives late last month. As of now, Silver is the highest-profile ABC Newser outside the executive ranks who will soon exit in light of this round of layoffs.
THR broke the news of Silver’s imminent exit Tuesday morning.