Political Poll News Site 538 to Close Amid Larger Shuttering Across ABC and Disney
upstart writes:
The popular political poll news and analysis website, 538, is being shut down as part of a broader shuttering effort across ABC News and Disney Entertainment, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday night.
Disney is reportedly cutting 200 positions across ABC News Group and Disney Entertainment Networks, including shutting down the data-driven 538.
[...] FiveThirtyEight, which is named after the number of electors in the US electoral college, has become a popular website for predictions, analysis and watching the polls in the months and days leading up to election night.
But the website's workforce had been slowly dwindling for a couple of years. The 15 employees still with the outlet make up less than half of the team from 2023, when it had about 35 employees.
The decline began when 538's founder, Nate Silver, left the company two years ago when his Disney contract expired.
[...] The broader media landscape has been hit with mass layoffs seemingly nonstop for months. Last month, MSNBC announced a massive shakeup at the network that included letting go of Joy Reid and her production team, as well as no longer using the Spanish-language network Telemundo.
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