FiveThirtyEight Hires Perry Bacon Jr. as Senior Political Writer

Perry Bacon Jr. joins FiveThirtyEight as a senior political writer. Working alongside the site's politics team, Bacon will focus on covering the Trump administration and its effects, in Washington and in the country at large. He will be based in Washington, D.C. Bacon joins FiveThirtyEight from NBC News, where he has been a senior political reporter. He covered President Obama and his administration as well as the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, making regular appearances on MSNBC and writing extensively for NBCNews.com.

Previously, Bacon was a White House reporter and national political reporter at The Washington Post. Bacon also spent four years as a national political writer at TIME.

"We're beyond excited to add a journalist of Perry's caliber to
FiveThirtyEight as we cover the political climate in the United States and the far-reaching impacts of Donald Trump's presidency," said Nate Silver, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of FiveThirtyEight. "Perry will have a broad portfolio to help shape our coverage not only in Washington, but also elsewhere around the country as we increasingly blend data-driven and traditional reporting."

"I've been reading FiveThirtyEight for years now, always appreciating the site's approach to both finding stories that no else has and using data and analysis to add clarity and deep insight on subjects everyone is covering, like the presidential election," Bacon said. "I know I'm not alone, as I speak to readers all over the country who enjoy the site's approach. So I'm thrilled to join FiveThirtyEight and work alongside Nate Silver and the great team he has already assembled."

FiveThirtyEight, which launched as an ESPN entity in 2014, is a data journalism organization delivering compelling stories across the verticals of politics, economy, science, life and sports. The site, founded by award-winning author and statistician Nate Silver, first gained national attention during the 2008 presidential election, when it correctly predicted the results of the, along with all 35 U.S. Senate races. Since its debut at ESPN, FiveThirtyEight has built a team with a broad set of skills and experiences in order to apply statistical analysis, data visualization, and data-literate reporting to topics in the news and in everyday life.

Image courtesy of ESPN

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