Disney erases FiveThirtyEight's archive, redirecting to ABC News
By
7777777phil
12d ago· 26 min readenOpinion
100/100
Golden Brown
Bagelometer↗
Master baker tier. Every paragraph earns its place on the tray.
Score100TypeopinionSentimentnegative
Summary
The article discusses Disney's decision to erase FiveThirtyEight's online archive, redirecting visitors to ABC News. The author reflects on Disney's 10-year mismanagement of the data journalism site, noting the gradual deterioration of the archive since the site was shut down in 2025. The piece serves as a critique of corporate ownership's impact on digital journalism and the loss of valuable data-driven reporting archives.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledLast Thursday night, I was working late, trying to put some of the finishing touches on our forthcoming World Cup model — and actually looking up an article I'd written for FiveThirtyEight in 2014 about my previous soccer model, SPI.
Although the quality of the archive has gradually deteriorated since Disney shut down the site in 2025 (I left two years earlier in 2023), at least our text-based articles were mostly still there, or so I thought.
Instead, I was auto-redirected to ABC News's home page.
Nothing on the internet lasts forever. But Disney's 10-year mismanagement of FiveThirtyEight is its own story.
Nothing on the internet lasts forever. But Disney’s 10-year mismanagement of FiveThirtyEight is its own story.
