Mike Malloy - Associated Press Early Nomination Call For Clinton Sent Media Scrambling

Andrew Lack, the chairman of NBC News, was dining with Matt Lauer on the Upper East Side on Monday night when his phone rang, mid-halibut.

It quickly became clear that the fish would have to wait.

The Associated Press had just declared Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, a decision based not on any primary victory — none were held on Monday — but on the news agency’s own canvassing of superdelegates, the party insiders who can support any candidate they choose.

It was an unusual, somewhat arcane way to crown the nation’s first female presidential nominee from a major party, in part because the 571 superdelegates who told The A.P. they were committed to Mrs. Clinton are free to change their minds until the convention next month.

But The A.P.’s call created a trigger effect in newsrooms around the country, which have long viewed the agency as an arbiter of election results.

Pollsters at major television networks scrambled to confirm The A.P.’s math, with one official at CBS News hopping on a bicycle to quickly return to his office. CNN producers yanked an on-air promo teasing Tuesday’s races as Mrs. Clinton’s critical moment. NBC News, the first TV network to match the call, had its director of elections make a rare on-air appearance on MSNBC.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/politics/clinton-associated-press-race-call.html

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