MoJo Video: Meet Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com at the DNC

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Nate Silver invented PECOTA, a system that predicts the future performance of baseball players that’s used by teams and baseball geeks alike. Now he’s turned his attention to political forecasting, and he’s found he’s pretty good at that, too. Silver’s site, FiveThirtyEight.com (named after the number of electors in the electoral college), relies on polls, demographics, and statistical analysis to predict who is going to win the 2008 Presidential election. I sat down with him for a quick chat yesterday at the Democratic National Convention; watch the video here. [Nate’s on the right.]

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Russian bots are impersonating us. Trump and his allies want to silence us. AI wants to (and does!) steal our content. The list goes on. But with 50 years of experience, we know we were built for this moment: We’re ready to keep diving deep and uncovering the truth, then getting that to you right here, completely accessible and never behind a paywall.

While our work is free to read, watch, and listen to online, it’s incredibly costly to make. Court documents, travel, research: It all adds up. Because we’re a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on reader support to fund our investigations. Will you stand with us in these extraordinary times, as headlines clamour for our attention and disinformation is rampant? We can’t get the truth out without you.

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