‘Terrible boss’ Nate Silver slammed by former employee as ABC mulls ax for FiveThirtyEight

A woman who worked for data journalist Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight news site called him a “terrible boss” on Tuesday as Disney-owned ABC is reportedly considering shutting down the data-driven news site.

Farai Chideya, who worked as a reporter for FiveThirtyEight during the 2016 election, posted a lengthy tweet that went viral on Tuesday. She called Silver “a white male nerd” who runs “a money-losing website that fails to spot trends.”

“I had some great friends and allies at @FiveThirtyEight,” Chideya tweeted on Tuesday. “But Nate Silver was a terrible boss, especially for women and people of color.”

“Someone needs to do some data journalism about how long women on average lasted there,” she tweeted. “And that made journalism worse.”

The Post has requested comment from ABC News.

Chideya wrote that Silver was a “terrible manager” who “did not listen” to his employees’ complaints, especially “criticism from female employees”.

She described one occasion when she confronted Silver and threatened to leave if “things didn’t get better”. Chideya tweeted that the incident left him “overwhelmed”.

Silver was also accused of being “part of the problem with American journalism” as he failed to properly assess how “race and gender were weaponized” by Donald Trump to win the 2016 presidential election.

According to the black Chideyi, Silver “discarded any significance of race and gender in the metanarrative.”

Chideya posted tweets in response to a Daily Beast report alleging that ABC News executives put Silver’s news site “on the block” as the network considers cost-cutting measures.

A decision is expected to be made by ABC News management this summer when Silver’s contract expires.

The site’s performance is allegedly under review by ABC News President Kimberly Godwin, according to the report, which added that ABC may be trying to “offload” FiveThirtyEight’s site in the sale.

The site, which never made a profit, was founded by Silver in 2008. It was originally the property of the New York Times, where Silver made a national name for himself by accurately predicting the election of Barack Obama.

In 2013, Silver and his website moved from the Times to Disney-owned ESPN. In 2018, FiveThirtyEight was acquired by ESPN subsidiary ABC News.

Additional report by Thomas Barrabee