Nate Silver Out at ABC News as Disney Layoffs Once Again Hit News Division

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The second round of Disney layoffs once again hit ABC News on Tuesday, with Nate Silver’s data-driven politics and journalism brand FiveThirtyEight among those being impacted.

Silver told FiveThirtyEight employees in a Slack message that he expects to leave Disney when his contract is up, which he added would be “soon,” The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

ABC News is expected to keep the FiveThirtyEight brand name, with plans to streamline the site and make it more efficient.

“ABC News 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,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement. “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.”

In his Slack message, Silver wrote that “unfortunately the day we’ve been worried about has arrived.”

“We don’t yet know the scope of these layoffs, exactly who is impacted, or the terms under which they are departing, but it is going to be a hard day for all of us,” he added.

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