Last month, famed data journalist Nate Silver branched out in his own website, fivethirtyeight.com, under the ownership of ESPN, more commonly known for its sports coverage. Silver is largely known for his political coverage, merging information from various polls to come up with his own election predictions.

Silver has been working under the banner of fivethirtyeight for some time, formerly for the New York Times. It was here that he became somewhat of a public figure, correctly predicting the outcomes of all 50 states in the 2012 presidential election. Despite this achievement, Silver has maintained that the presidential election predictions were but a small part of his and his team’s work.

As fivethirtyeight’s manifesto clearly states, the company is intended to be a symbiosis of data and journalism. For those of us used to news-like programs which sensationalize anything and everything possible, it is refreshing to see so much attention being paid to backing up claims and stories with good, hard facts.

At this point, fivethirtyeight may sound like a hub for the nerdier among us, likely inaccessible to the vast majority of internet browsers. In reality, though, the site maintains several distinct categories of content, from the drier political stories to sports coverage to more lifestyle-geared articles.

Sometimes these cover serious topics, and sometimes they don’t, such as the statistical analysis published about the artistic works of Bob Ross, known for his Happy Trees television program.

Apart from these subjects, fivethirtyeight brings a data-friendly mindset to topics covered extensively by political pundits and politicians, such as climate change. One of the first stories fivethirtyeight published was an analysis of the rising cost of natural disasters, and how such costs are not related to anthropogenic climate change.

This drew considerable criticism for a variety of reasons, and in response to that criticism, Silver did what few public figures actually do: he listened, and made appropriate adjustments. Taking the large number of consumers in disagreement as somewhat of a challenge, Silver commissioned a response from Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at MIT.

It truly is an odd sight to see a public figure not only admit that they may well have been wrong, but to actively support finding the truth, regardless of whether or not it agrees with their original position.

What makes fivethirtyeight different, though, really is their focus on correctly using and interpreting large volumes of data and information. Since most of us have a skeptical view of statistics, if not an outright fear, this can be extremely rare.

The world is full of information. That information is largely unavailable to us, however. Every now and then, some people come along who can tell the rest of us what the information means, effectively decoding the events of our world. This skill and the value it holds should never be overlooked, especially regarding important topics that affect us all.

Every one of us living in a society such as ours should value journalism, and value journalism done effectively and with integrity. So far, it appears as though the writers over at fivethirtyeight are doing both, with a hefty dose of data thrown into the mix. Fivethirtyeight is merely one source of news, however. Silver and his colleagues have bet on the idea that readers really do want more than scandals and a smattering of possibly relevant facts. Since all businesses rely on giving consumers what they ask for, we all collectively have the ability to demand a better news industry. Hopefully in the near future such news organizations will become the norm, rather than the outliers.