Nate Silver: 2/3 of America's op-ed columnists are "worthless"

I agree, but I think Nate Silver's at least pretty self-righteous himself. I've never read David Brooks call 2/3 of his colleagues in the field "crap" and "worthless."

 

The problem is, a lot of people like that stuff.

538 is betting on a population of folks who have been turned off to it for years -- and I'm in that group -- turning on to its model. I think folks will, but Silver prolongs a trend of younger journalists/thinkers with a bitter streak.

 

I'm not sure why you have such a hard-on for the guy.

His 538 site at the NYT was a runaway success story.

Other than his inartful comment about his fellow columnists, what specific nit do you want to pick with his actual work? It seems pretty damned sound to me.

I mean, on one hand, it continues the tradition of horse race election coverage. On the other hand, everyone else was doing that poorly, and he was filling a specific niche, providing accurate analysis where inaccurate analysis had previously prevailed.

 

There has to be a better business strategy than merely mimicking the teevee screechfests in printed words.

 

Well, if you're crap, it's probably not in your best interest to point out how many columnists are crap.

Why invite the attention?

 

If he, and his site, only focused on the horse race, it would be a massive letdown.

The value Silver brings is that he uses data to explain and/or argue any number of things.

And, when they do the horse race story, they do it better than anyone else. Even if he is Jewish, skinny and effeminate.

 

His comment probably goes back to his Baseball Prospectus days where they concentrate on replacement level performance. What percentage of baseball players (and basketball, football, etc.) are replacement level, i.e. worthless? Geez, wouldn't you figure 50% of people are average or worse? What's another 16.666666666666%?

 

Well, other than "Brand Value" how much value do Brooks, Dowd, Rhoden, Blow, etc. bring?

It would not be hard to replace them with cheaper writers, who could crank out similar columns. And, if you really looked around, you might even be able to find writers who understood how to crunch data, and use it to formulate an educated opinion.

The Times had one guy like that, but he left recently. What was his name?

 

Can't speak for the others but according to Amazon, he's innovative:

"A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America’s most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past ... "

... so that brings value, right?

 

When I was a child and teenager and well into my adulthood, Times op-ed columnists were ALWAYS persons who had been promoted because of perceived excellence as reporters and stylists. The hiring of outsiders like Krugman and Brooks is a new phenomenon, probably created by the fact the old system began to throw up duds like Dowd and Friedman. The latter was an excellent reporter and is a really bad joke as a columnist.

 

What you see as inartful I saw as ironic. Silver is capable of the same histrionics and bold proclamations the "crap quadrant" is. We all are. The difference is, to some extent, people still want to read that stuff. You don't think people read Brooks and Albom and Shaughnessy and Friedman and get something out of it? They do. You may not agree with what they get out of it -- I may not agree, and I often don't -- but Gex X/Y relativists sure tend to be moralists the minute somebody writes something they think is stupid.

Silver wants to build his own thing, ESPN wants to underwrite it, and I like the idea. I don't write about it often here, but I love analytics put to sports. I see some limits when it comes to football, but I think it's a damned fine trend. The front-end bitterness and lecturing of HR departments is unfortunate. When Silver's run the thing for 10 years, talk HR practices. Until you've actually seen the clubhouse chemistry at work -- on deadline, after weeks/months/years of the grind -- don't tout the clubhouse chemistry.

 

Oddly enough, that's exactly why I SHOULD be in love with him. That hits three of my fetishes.

However, he's so fucking unlikeable and smug that it makes me want to murder. He was the keynote speaker at the Online News Association conference in the fall, and I walked in hating him. I grew to love him in the first five minutes, and then, immediately thereafter, thought he was a repugnant human being. Plus, he's just a TERRIBLE speaker. He's a nerd who works with numbers. Great. Then don't get up in front of crowds. Because you're terrible at it.