Pollster Nate Silver’s data-driven politics and journalism brand FiveThirtyEight will be impacted by Disney’s new wave of layoffs, he wrote on Tuesday.
Silver suggested in a Twitter post that he will be departing the company in the near future. “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,” he added.
“I had been worried about an outcome like this and so have had some great initial conversations about opportunities elsewhere,“ he continued. ”Don’t hesitate to get in touch. I am so proud of the work of FiveThirtyEight staff. It has never been easy. I’m so sorry to the people impacted by this.”
In a statement, Disney-owned ABC News said that it “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.” It did not mention Silver, who founded FiveThirtyEight, by name.
“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,” the company’s statement continued.
Founded about 15 years ago, FiveThirtyEight became a feature on the New York Times website before ESPN acquired the brand in 2013. It then moved over to Disney’s ABC in 2018.
This week, reports indicated that Silver sent a Slack message to his staff and warned that there would be layoffs. Silver indicated in those messages that he would leave the company after his contract ends.
Last month, ABC laid off a slew of senior executives as part of a larger cost-cutting effort at Disney. The company’s CEO, Bob Iger, announced he February he wants to slash about 7,000 jobs.
ESPN, which is also owned by Disney, confirmed on Monday that it is cutting jobs.
“As we advance as a core segment of Disney, with operational control and financial responsibility, we must further identify ways to be efficient and nimble,” ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro said in a memo, reported The Associated Press. “We will continue to focus our workforce on initiatives that are most closely aligned with our critical priorities and emphasize decision-making and responsibility deeper into the organization.”
On Monday, Fox News announced it was parting ways with popular host Tucker Carlson for undisclosed reasons. And about an hour later, former CNN host Don Lemon wrote that the company fired him, which was confirmed by the network.
