This morning NBC News and MSNBC executives celebrated the opening of the new Decision Desk, where 2016 primary and general election exit poll data will be scrutinized, and races will be called.
NBC News Group chief Andy Lack along with NBC News president Deborah Turness, and MSNBC president Phil Griffin were among the attendees for the champagne toast and ribbon-cutting ceremony. The Decision Desk, on the 4th floor of the Comcast Building, is run by NBC News elections director John Lapinski, (pictured with Griffin and Turness), who joined the network in 2013.
Lapinski takes over as election director from Sheldon Gawiser who has been with NBC since the 1988 elections. Gawiser is now senior adviser for NBC. The new space, which includes a system that can calculate more than 300 models per second and track well over 500 races at a time, is the team’s first permanent home at 30 Rock. The new Decision Desk takes over a space that had been used by News Sales Archives, and is part of larger newsroom transformation project.
