Nate Silver Vents Disney Told Him to 'Get Lost'

"Silver calculated 200,000 hours, or about 23 years of combined work. During the Disney era, which lasted about 10 years, FiveThirtyEight published about 20 stories a week. Let's say that each story took about 20 hours to produce between research, writing, graphics, and editing, Silver explained. Do the math, and that works out to about 200,000 person-hours of work that ABC News just deleted."

"Before deleting the site's history, Silver said he approached Disney a year or two ago about buying the archive. I'm probably the logical high bidder, though the value is rapidly depreciating as what's left of the site falls into disrepair. At a minimum, we'd restore the archive, with prominent links to Silver Bulletin, Silver explained. That plan was shot down, though."

"We were told to basically get lost: ABC was annoyed with my critical public comments about their management of FiveThirtyEight, Silver explained. He wrote that Disney was a poor parent company that did little to help the site succeed after buying it for an undisclosed sum in 2013. The thinking at Disney is presumably that they invested a lot of money in FiveThirtyEight and were left with nothing to show for it."

"But to my mind, however much they spent on FiveThirtyEight, they never invested a dollar in it, Silver said."

FiveThirtyEight’s archive was deleted after Disney decided to wipe the political data outlet’s entire web history. Nate Silver estimated the lost effort at about 200,000 hours, roughly 23 years of combined work, based on the site publishing around 20 stories per week during Disney’s decade-long ownership. He calculated that producing each story required about 20 hours across research, writing, graphics, and editing. Silver described a prior attempt to buy the archive, proposing restoration and prominent links to Silver Bulletin, but the plan was rejected. He said ABC was annoyed by his critical public comments and criticized Disney for investing money without supporting the site’s success.

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