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).