There Is a 99.45% Chance That Nate Silver Is Changing Journalism

Nate Silver and ESPN made official that the baseball-stats analyst turned election data-cruncher, whose aggregation of polls predicted the last two presidential elections more accurately than politicians and pundits alike, will leave the New York Times and join the sports network and its sister outlet, ABC News. As part of the deal, Silver will have a TV role on ESPN (including, reportedly, on Keith Olbermann’s new show) and on ABC, will get to return to his first love of sports while expanding into many fields beyond politics, and get to build a mini-empire in the form of an ESPN sub site modeled on Bill Simmons’ Grantland.

What does the story mean beyond the fortunes of one media guy? A few (admittedly gut-based) thoughts:

• Media people like Silver don’t have jobs; they have alliances.
• Silver embarrassed pundits; he didn’t kill political journalism.
• What Nate Silver does is journalism.
• The most interesting part of the story may be neither sports nor politics.
• But it’s about much more than Nate Silver.