黛布拉·布鲁诺
2018年2月19日
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In a city full of big egos, 乔恩·德克尔’s recent achievement might be hard to top.
The only daily member of the White House press corps with a law degree, the Fox 澳博app Radio correspondent found out late last year that he had passed the D.C. 澳博app资格考试.
这不仅引发了《澳博app》(Politico’s Playbook)的大声疾呼, 华盛顿政治圈内人的通讯, but on December 5 it got the attention of White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
A reporter asked Sanders if President Trump could be charged with obstruction of justice, and whether the White House’s legal counsel had looked into that question.
桑德斯回应说:“我不是澳博app. 据我所知，房间里只有乔恩·德克尔.笑声响起.
“And so if you want to ask him legal questions, you certainly can,” Sanders added.
这就是德克尔, 50, 希望会实现, 如果不是在记者团的其他成员中, at least from listeners of Fox radio and viewers of Fox television, 谁可能对一系列法律问题有疑问.
How Decker got to be the only White House reporter with a law degree is a meandering story. 自1995年起担任白宫记者, first with PBS’s Nightly Business Report (now produced by CNBC), Decker started his career as a financial analyst on Wall Street. “这是你在80年代所做的，”他说. “我没有想过，这是我真正想做的吗?” he adds, although he realized after just a year that it wasn’t for him.
他回到学校学习国际关系. While he was doing that, he started working as an assistant press secretary for Sen. John Heinz, the moderate Pennsylvania Republican who was the heir to the H.J. 亨氏公司.
Heinz was killed in a plane accident on April 4, 1991, a date Decker recites instantly. 事实上, Decker was on his way to pick up the senator at the airport when he got the news that Heinz and others, 包括地上的一些孩子, 死于与直升机的空中相撞.
That tragedy offered Decker a chance to examine what he might want to do next. “It was the end of a job I enjoyed—I really believed in what he believed in,” Decker says. “I decided in that moment to make a decision to either work for another politician or to pursue what I thought was my passion — journalism.”
多年来, 他在迈阿密和华盛顿为NBC工作, 对于路透社来说, 天狼星XM收音机, 和PBS, where he first worked for the Nightly Business Report and then as host for the show This Week in Business.
他搬到了D区.C. in 1995 to cover the White House, and has been here ever since. 20多年前, it didn’t take as long for a reporter to get a “hard pass” to cover the White House, the laminated card that lets journalists enter the White House briefing room without going through a complicated security protocol each time. 从那时起, he’s covered the White House under 12 press secretaries and four administrations, 最终转到福克斯电台. 他还为福克斯商业电视台撰稿.
几年前, Decker decided that a law degree would set him apart and let him explain legal issues—with confidence—to his audience. “When there are questions on executive orders or the constitutionality of the president’s travel ban or when Supreme Court decisions are handed down, 福克斯需要我提供洞察力,他说. His goal is to explain and distill concepts for the average listener who might not have any legal expertise.
It took Decker three and a half years of night classes at The George Washington University Law School (helped by a small tuition stipend from Fox). He timed it so that he would finish the course work before the beginning of the 2016 presidential election cycle, 这意味着要在2015年12月之前完工. 在那之后, he had to figure out when he could take the bar exam.
在他完成之后, 第一个可用的澳博app考试日期是2016年2月, 在初选期间. The second time it was offered was July 2016, in the midst of political conventions. The third time was February of 2017, just after the first 100 days of the Trump administration. Decker realized there would always be some reason not to take the exam, so he settled on July 2017.
Once he started studying, he put in a regular workday that ended at 5 p.m. 在那之后, he’d remain in his snug radio booth in the press area of the White House where he’d study for three hours straight, 星期一至星期五. 周末他从早上5点开始学习.m. 到5点或6点.m. 没有间断.
他通过了. “感谢我所做的一切, 我认为这是我一生中最大的成就,他说. 但他并不打算真正从事法律工作. 拥有法律学位“为你打开了一扇大门,他说, 但他在白宫忙得不可开交, with serving on the board of the White House Correspondents Association, 还有他对网球的热爱.
他和妻子最近刚从澳大利亚旅行回来, 他们在哪里观看了澳大利亚网球公开赛, completing what he calls the “Decker Slam” goal of visiting all of the tennis opens.
他还想提高他的法语水平, although that may be tough in a time when the news cycle is so fast. A big story in the past would last 24 hours; now it often changes by the hour, he says. “总统在推特上谈论朝鲜，我们关注这个问题. And then he makes a statement on Iran, and we’re off in a different direction.”
Even with the chaos, he says, “There’s not a day I don’t take it for granted. 我不会拿它换任何东西.”
