Bonus: Hosts Deb Becker and Darryl C. Murphy talk about the business, special recipes and secret ingredients

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from WBUR’s Saturday morning newsletter, The Weekender. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.

If you listen to WBUR, you probably recognize Deb Becker’s voice.

After all, she has been with the station for over two and a half decades – as a producer, reporter, presenter, editor and much more.

But did you know that Deb also loves to cook?

In this week’s episode of The commonshe sat down with Darryl C. Murphy (a culinary pro) for a cooking session/interview. While Deb prepared her famous orzo pasta salad, Darryl helped listeners get to know her a little better. She talks about her work as a reporter, what it was like growing up as one of six kids, and the journalists she admires. You can listen to the full podcast here (and get the pasta salad recipe).

When you bring two charismatic interviewers like Deb and Darryl together, the conversation flows naturally. Although the episode was centered around Deb, she ended up asking Darryl a few questions about his experience as a journalist – while he was cooking up his own specialty: a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

This conversation (and the cookies) didn’t make it into the final cut. But if you’ve finished listening to the podcast and are hungry for more, we’re sharing this bonus content with you below.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Deb Becker: So you’ve asked me a lot of questions. Can I ask you a few questions?

Darryl C. Murphy: Absolutely.

Database: How did you get into journalism?

DCM: I talked myself into journalism, so to speak.

I had an English professor at Temple University whose class I didn’t like, and I wanted to drop the class. If you drop a class after the drop date, you don’t get a refund. But I thought, “I just paid thousands of dollars for a service. I should get my money back.” So I went to the faculty and explained my case. And it just so happened that I was there on the new president’s first day. Since he had just started, he told me to come back in a week.

We must have talked for about an hour and a half. We talked about my writing (for Temple News) and I could tell he was intrigued because later he said, “Hey, I’m on the board of this nonprofit newspaper. They’re looking for an intern. Would you be interested?” And I said, “Yeah.” He made the connection. I got the interview. They liked me. And I just saw my direction. I did the work and two months later they said, “You want a job?” That’s how I got in.

Database: Did you get your money back for the course?

DCM: I didn’t.

Database: Ohhh.

DCM: But all in all, I have to give this professor a lot of credit for not being my favorite professor.

Journalism was my thing. I went back to school in 2014, and at that time I was learning English, writing, stuff like that. And then “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates came out of The Atlantic – when I read the article, I thought, “Oh, I could do that.” I’m not saying I could do it at that level back then, but knowing that he was someone who didn’t have a college degree but knew how to ask questions and get the right support, I thought, “That’s very possible.”

Database: And how did you get into the audio industry?

DCM: I was working in Philly at the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, which is just down the street from WHYY. One thing led to another and I ended up at WHYY.

Database: What have you done there?

DCM: The main topic I covered was transportation. In this section, you learn about funding, but you also get a very direct look at how a little bit of money here impacts a community and how people can’t get to where they need to go if the buses aren’t running on time – we’re talking about work, school, doctor’s appointments, all of those things.

For my first story, I was supposed to cover a meeting about SEPTA service zones. This meeting was boring as hell. And I’m asking questions and trying to figure out how to write this. But then I took a step back and said, “I think I’m looking at the wrong thing.” This is a public Meeting, but there aren’t many people there. And the story was that there wasn’t a lot of turnout at this event – where they decided which stations would go where – and that became the story.

Database: And that’s only possible with local reporting. You have to be there and talk to people. Ultimately, the stories are about people, no matter what you do.

PS — Did we mention that Darryl loves using soy sauce in his chocolate chip cookies? Click here to get his recipe.

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