Photo by Randy Stewart
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Online News Association, the world’s largest membership organization of digital journalists, announces that Nate Silver, best-selling author and expert data forecaster at FiveThirtyEight.com, will keynote at its 2013 conference in Atlanta.
Silver will be featured at the Online News Association Conference and Awards Banquet Friday, Oct. 18, in a conversation exploring data journalism.
Silver, ranked this week as #1 on Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2013, has become today’s leading statistician through his innovative analyses of political polling. He first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election, when he correctly predicted the results of the primaries and the presidential winner in 49 states. Today, he runs the award-winning political website FiveThirtyEight.com, where he publishes a running forecast of current elections and hot-button issues. Now published in the New York Times, FiveThirtyEight.com has made Silver the public face of statistical analysis and political forecasting.
His book, “The Signal and The Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t,” is a New York Times bestseller. Before he came to politics, he established his credentials as an analyst of baseball statistics. He developed a widely acclaimed system called PECOTA (Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm), which predicts player performance, career development, and seasonal winners and losers. He is the author of a series of books on baseball statistics, which include “Mind Game,” “Baseball Between the Numbers,” and “It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over.”
He has been honored by a series of accolades, from Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2009 to Rolling Stone’s 100 Agents of Change. FiveThirtyEight.com won Best Political Coverage in the 2008 Weblog Awards.
“We’re thrilled to have Nate join us and to get a chance to hear him expound on his brand of thoughtful, incisive analysis and the critical role data plays in our business,” said ONA Executive Director Jane McDonnell.
Early-bird registration is open for the conference, which has sold out five years running.
About ONA
The Online News Association is the world’s largest association of digital journalists. ONA’s mission is to inspire innovation and excellence among journalists to better serve the public. The membership includes news writers, producers, designers, editors, bloggers, developers, photographers, educators, students and others who produce news for and support digital delivery systems. ONA also hosts the annual Online News Association conference and administers the Online Journalism Awards.