The New York Times Just Hit Back Hard At Nate Silver

After Nate Silver, Brian Stelter, and a few other high-profile employees left The New York Times in the past few months, concerns were abound about a "brain drain" at the "paper of record."

Today, the NYT hit back at those concerns in a big way.

Executive editor Jill Abramson announced that former Washington bureau chief David Leonhardt would become the managing editor of a new venture at the "nexus of data and news."

And it already has some big hires:

• Nate Cohn, a polling maestro from The New Republic
• Justin Wolfers, an economics professor at the University of Michigan
• Michael Bechloss, the presidential historian, who will write a daily column
• Graphic editor Amanda Cox

Abramson also said the NYT will produce a new "morning tip sheet," which will serve as competition to Mike Allen's famous Politico "Playbook." It came the same day, incidentally, as Politico announced that it would offer a New York version of "Playbook" beginning on Thursday.

Silver's "FiveThirtyEight" site also announced a slew of new hires on Tuesday.