It seems silly to ask, but does anyone really think the New York Times would willingly give up Nate Silver, the winner of the 2012 election?
Fishbowl NY ran with that idea during today’s Business Insider Ignite summit in New York as Executive Editor Jill Abramson discussed the stats wunderkind’s tenure at the paper. From the event:
“We would love to have Nate continue to be part of the New York Times family, and to expand on what he does,” she said. “We know he began in sports anyway, so it is not an exclusively political product. I am excited to talk to Nate when he finishes his book tour about ways to expand that kind of reporting.”
The massive white elephant in the room is that Silver’s contract with The Grey Lady is up by the end of the year. But it’s also a newsroom that is dealing with international media fallout with the recent hire of new CEO Mark Thompson, who brings not only years of experience to the paper but his involvement in the recent BBC scandal. The Atlantic caught a response from Silver, who is promoting his book “The Sound and the Noise,” that read more as a pleasantry than an answer.
The media world is currently Silver’s oyster. If the Times wanted to get more use out of him, they could always bring back his love of baseball or burritos. But if the Times was no longer the home of 538, it would make the most sense for a Bloomberg or even a Buzzfeed to swoop in and offer him the freedom to stat as he saw fit.
Still, we’ll wait and see what the new year brings for our favorite number cruncher.