Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 67 posts

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#11

Post by rickdale »

ESPN has come a long way since 2012 Super Bowl production where they had Herm Edwards explaining the Patriots offense to 2 toddlers who couldn't stand in the same place for a second. It was probably the worst segment in ESPN history.

I really like this move though because lately a lot of ESPN women seemed to have moved to CBS or NBC ie Rachel Nichols, Erin Andrews, Michelle Beadle and I am sure more. Not that Nate Silver or Keith Olberman are women, but it definitely is aimed at the right audience and I look forward to this test run at 11 of what seems to be solid broadcasting.

On another note I think a Daily Show style program that brings in clips of announcers and ESPN and makes fun of them would be a great program. Just putting it out there.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#13

Post by _delirium »

chimeracoder wrote: post #7
clicks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do hope they bring him back for future major Elections. His commentary is a delightful respite from the ultra-polarized world of Reddit and Fox News. Funny you say that, as Reddit had majorly sided with Nate Silver way before election day. Almost every post of his was frontpaged when political campaigns were in full swing. It's also important to note that Fox News is not in the same category that Reddit is in. Fo…

> Funny you say that, as Reddit had majorly sided with Nate Silver way before election day. Be that as it may, Nate Silver is actually thoughtful, articulate, and well-reasoned - three words which do not describe /r/politics, etc. It's not just a matter of which opinions one holds; it's a matter of how intelligently one expresses them and defends them with data and evidence. (The irony with Reddit's love of FiveThirt…

I agree Silver is relatively moderate, but FiveThirtyEight did more or less grow out of DailyKos [1], so it's not a huge stretch to suggest he personally has a clear preference for one or the other side of the American political spectrum. It's not like he also had a blog on the right-wing equivalents of DailyKos, like FreeRepublic or RedState.

[1] For a year or so before he launched fivethirtyeight.com as an independent site, he posted data-driven election analysis, among other things, at http://www.dailykos.com/blog/poblano

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#14

Post by ssharp »

Silver seems to fit in with the Grantland side of ESPN, but also seems too big for Grantland. It will be interesting to see how he fits in on that network, given his more complicated analysis. He never seemed nearly as compelling on TV as he was in writing and as a fan of his work, I hope his TV presense improves as a result of this new deal. I think he's certainly earned more than a blog at the NYT.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#15

Post by markbao »

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports, when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction.

Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and etc. certainly play a big role, but I'm curious.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#16

Post by pulakm »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

Nate Silver's background is in sports - that's really where his statistics-magic got started. I imagine sports is one of his passions, and he's now gotten to a point where he can combine that with his skill in statistics at the same scale as he was with politics.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#17

Post by ics »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

For all the children who will get interested in statistics because of their favorite sport it's pretty cool. That might not be the answer you were looking for, but as someone who grew up collecting baseball cards obsessively I think it's great.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#18

Post by thejacenxpress »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

I find it comical questioning his decision to choose sports (or anything for that matter) when he is famous and incredibly accurate for his predictions. While I agree sports may not be the best use of his ability, I'm sure he's done the math for choosing his next career step.

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#19

Post by [deleted] »

markbao wrote: post #15

I think it's a waste of Nate Silver's intelligence to work on something like sports , when there are many other bigger problems to potentially be solved with the help of statistics and prediction. Why might ESPN be a good option for him? Can someone help me see the other side of this? It's totally his decision to make, and I'm sure he's looked at his options rationally, and life circumstances and past experience and…

[deleted]

Re: Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight Blog Is to Join ESPN Staff

#20

Post by cmsmith »

clicks wrote: post #5
josh2600 wrote: post #2

I adore Nate Silvers work and the presentation for the NYTimes during the Presidential Elections was outstanding. I do hope they bring him back for future major Elections. His commentary is a delightful respite from the ultra-polarized world of Reddit and Fox News.

> I do hope they bring him back for future major Elections. His commentary is a delightful respite from the ultra-polarized world of Reddit and Fox News. Funny you say that, as Reddit had majorly sided with Nate Silver way before election day. Almost every post of his was frontpaged when political campaigns were in full swing. It's also important to note that Fox News is not in the same category that Reddit is in. Fo…

I think it's important to note that they sided with him while he was saying what they wanted to hear.

Reddit/MSNBC had it easy this past election, because they could say what they could be optimistic and listen to the experts at the same time. My disillusionment with political journalism will be fully validated during the next election won by Republicans, when Fox is on the side of 'science' and MSNBC says that 'science' can't be trusted.

Post reply on HN