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FiveThirtyEight is a data journalism organization. Let me explain what we mean by that, and why we think the intersection of data and journalism is so important.
If you’re a casual reader of FiveThirtyEight, you may associate us with election forecasting, and in particular with the 2012 presidential election, when our election model “called” 50 out of 50 states right.
Certainly we had a good night. But this was and remains a tremendously overrated accomplishment....
The other reason I say our election forecasts were overrated is because they didn’t represent the totality, or even the most important part, of our journalism at FiveThirtyEight. We also covered topics ranging from the increasing acceptance of gay marriage to the election of the new pope, along with subjects in sports, science, lifestyle and economics. Relatively little of this coverage entailed making predictions. Instead, it usually involved more preliminary steps in the data journalism process: collecting data, organizing data, exploring data for meaningful relationships, and so forth.
Data journalists have the potential to add value in each of these ways, just as other types of journalists can add value by gathering evidence and writing stories....
Here is Nate Silver's statement on the launch of data journalism's FiveThirtyEight. Lots of critics in the first several days but time will tell how it contributes to journalism and news trends.