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.<br /><br />It quickly became clear that the fish would have to wait.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/politics/clinton-associated-press-race-call.html<br /><br />SUBSCRIBE<br />http://www.youtube.com/MikeMalloyVideo<br /><br />PLEASE SUPPORT THE MIKE MALLOY YOUTUBE CHANNEL<br />http://tinyurl.com/MalloyChannelDonations
