Personally, I am not worried about Nate Silver going to the New York Times. Yeah, I know he is being assimilated into The Borg and the The Times is a badly flawed organization. But I see this as empowering Silver by giving him new resources and contacts. The graphics people alone will give his work a boost. And he will have greater credibility and reach as he documents the shenanigans that go on with polling in this country and he destroys right-wing narratives with statistics.
Giordano is right that The Times is a dying dinosaur, but this is the kind of move that can save newspapers. The blogosphere is a meritocracy of a different kind. It doesn’t matter where you went to college or who your parents are. If you are good, you will get readers. And that’s a better model for picking talent than just looking at recent grads from Missouri, Indiana, Syracuse, and the Ivies (or someone you know’s nephew or niece).
Agreed, and I wish Nate Silver the best of luck in his new gig. The best thing about this development is that he will be another voice who isn’t part of the cocktail weenie circuit dominated by the likes of David Broder and Tom Friedman and Richard Cohen. But I suspect that as more of our favorite bloggers like Nate gain mainstream status, we’ll have to keep an eye on them too, lest they form a Village of their own making.
I’ve met Nate a couple of times and he’s a solid guy. He’s not going to turn into Richard Cohen.