FiveThirtyEight has finally found its replacement in The Economist’s G Elliot Morris. ABC News has tapped Morris as editorial director of data analytics for the news division, a position that will oversee the FiveThirtyEight brand in the wake of Nate Silver’s departure.
Morris will begin this new role on June 26 and will be based in Washington, DC. He will lead all data journalism efforts for both ABC News and FiveThirtyEight, which will include “launching a full suite of polling-aggregation and election-forecasting models” for America. Elections that will be used for broadcast, streaming and digital. Morris will report to Lulu Chiang, vice president of ABC News Digital.
“With Elliott leading the talented data journalism team at ABC News and FiveThirtyEight, I look forward to bringing strong analysis of this current election cycle and the growth of voting data at ABC News,” ABC News President Kim Godwin wrote in a note to the news outlet. waiting.” The Division announced the hiring of Morris.
Prior to joining ABC News, Morris was senior data reporter and US correspondent for The Economist. In that role, he covered American politics, opinion polling, demographics and elections. He was also the principal developer of the publication’s election forecasting model for US presidential and foreign elections. Additionally, Morris writes the weekly “Checks and Balances” newsletter and is the author of “Strength in Numbers: How Poles Work and Why We Need Them.”
In April, Silver told FiveThirtyEight employees via Slack that he expected to leave ABC News after his contract expired. He later confirmed on Twitter that Disney’s layoffs had “substantially” affected FiveThirtyEight. Disney previously announced its plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs and generate $5.5 billion in cost savings.
Silver founded the data-driven website in 2008. It became a licensed feature of The New York Times in 2010, before being acquired by Disney and ESPN in 2013. This division eventually moved to ABC News.
Earlier this year, ABC News confirmed to TheWrap that it plans to retain the FiveThirtyEight brand. The spokesperson added, “ABC News is dedicated to data journalism with a core focus on politics, the economy and enterprise reporting – this streamlined structure will allow us to more closely align with our priorities for the 2024 election and beyond. ” “We are grateful for the invaluable contributions of the team members who will be leaving the organization and know they will continue to make a significant impact on the future of journalism.”
