About our Corporate “News” Media Premature Announcement that Clinton Clinched the Nomination

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15. It is a statement of fact: she is the presumptive nominee

and that announcement was going to be made tonight at 8:30 as soon as the results were in from NJ. The fact the announcement was made 24 hours earlier changes nothing.

The AP story refers to her as the presumptive nominee. Virtually every story I've read or heard does the same.
It's a presumption -- A conclusion as to the likely existence or nonexistence of a fact based on the available evidence.
In this case the available evidence is that Clinton has enough pledged delegates plus commitments from SDs to give her the nomination.

It's not an irrebuttable presumption -- it could be rebutted if new evidence becomes available, such as evidence that SDs are switching to Sanders. It also can become stronger over time if more SDs commit to Clinton, if Sanders SDs switch to her and/or Sanders makes no headway in getting any SDs to switch.

The media reports "predictions" all the time -- they report polls (some of which Sanders supporters are quite enamored of and Bernie himself likes to cite as if they were gospel rather than predictions). They also call elections before the votes are all counted and certified when the available evidence gives them sufficient confidence about a particular outcome.