From 410 to the Edison: Gatepost connections further blossom at The Daily Item

By Antonio Machado Associate Editor In the mutual pursuit to explore a creative outlet where they could explore a future career path, Dylan Pichnarcik and Sophia Harris met at Framingham State University’s independent student newspaper, The Gatepost. Sophia, on the brink of her ascension to Editor-in-Chief, and Dylan, balancing on the edge of photography and news, cultivated a friendship only found deep within the undertow of college extracurriculars. Now, a year after Sophia’s graduation and Dylan’s very own ascension into his role as The Gatepost’s current Editor-in-Chief, they met again in a professional capacity. Dylan spent his sophomore year curiously exploring the possibilities of journalism under the guidance of Sophia, who spent the summer of that same year interning for The Daily Item of Lynn. Throughout her time at Framingham State, Sophia painted herself as a fully fledged journalist, ready to report on the voices beyond State Street - eventually catching the attention of the Boston Globe, whose front page article on student journalism highlighted The Gatepost. “The publisher in Lynn saw that story, saw the picture, and was able to look me up and see my work online through The Gatepost. So he called me, and he said, ‘Hey, I would love to have you come in for an interview when your school year finishes,’” she said. “By the end of that summer, I was made news editor before I went back to school my senior year. And when I graduated, I came back as a news editor and then was promoted to editorial director. So now, I'm editorial director for Essex Media Group’s nine publications,” Sophia added. The Daily Item is a daily, print newspaper based in Lynn. It serves as the primary news source for Lynn and its neighboring North Shore communities, including Marblehead, Swampscott, Nahant, Peabody, Saugus, and Lynnfield. So, as an accomplished alumna, Sophia took it upon herself to spread the fruits of her labor and nurture the saplings growing from the same soil she sprouted from. “When I first met Dylan, he was kind of, you know, unsure about joining The Gatepost. I took him under my wing and tried to teach him everything I knew,” she said. She said Dylan was a very curious person, about the world around him and about journalism itself. Sophia said she tried to “clear the path” for Dylan, who has mirrored her career trajectory. Away from The Gatepost, Dylan spent his summer reporting for The Item under the supervision of Sophia. Dylan said, “She was here for a career night, as an alum. She invited me to work for her at The Item and kind of see how a professional newsroom operates.” He visited Sophia in Marblehead shortly after for a watch party of the Annual Army-Navy game, which resulted in his first article published by The Item, “VFW watches Navy sink Army in football.” “It’s on my LinkedIn,” he said with a smile. “About a week later, I was having dinner, and I got a call from her, and she offered me a job to come work with her over winter break. So I went and was working full time as a reporter for The Daily Item,” he added. He returned to working for The Item during this past summer. Dylan said his experiences working for The Gatepost in various capacities and studying journalism translated into the necessary skills for reporting professionally. He said there are many similarities between reporting on the voices of Framingham State and the voices of Lynn. “There are so many unique people who are doing amazing things. There are departments across the city and across the campus that are leading initiatives that impact people on a daily basis. “Just like at Framingham State, if a fire goes off, we chase it. … I mean, the deadlines are tighter because you're producing a product every day, once a day, for the next day’s paper. But it's all things that I learned at The Gatepost - talking to people, interviewing people, and really just hearing their stories and communicating them,” he said. Dylan said working under Sophia once again felt nostalgic. “It felt just like we were in McCarthy 410. “I would walk in at 9 a.m. and she would say, ‘Dylan, I need you to do this, this, and this.’ And I would sit at my desk and get it done, and then I'd get up a couple hours later, and she'd say, ‘Hey, you want to grab lunch?’ And we would sit in the conference room and talk about the past, talk about our friends, and just joke and have fun,” he said. Dylan added, “It was really nice to be able to go to her as someone that I knew and had a great relationship with so that I was comfortable hearing, ‘Hey, you didn't necessarily do this right. This is how you should do it,’ or, ‘I read your article. These are areas you need to improve on for your next story.’” He added he thinks having someone whom he had a great relationship with and knew well was effective in getting him prepared for the professional world. Sophia said she is happy their working and personal relationships remain unchanged and healthy. “We're able to joke around and have fun, but also, we both have a deep, deep reverence for the work that we do. … We both have the same goal, which is, you know, to produce good, accurate, factual journalism for our communities,” she said, Sophia said that seeing Dylan come into his own as a journalist has been a beautiful experience for her. “He's only gotten more curious. I mean, the more knowledge he has, and the more he learns about the world around him, he just becomes more and more invested and interested in it,” she added. “He really wants to get to the facts and get to the truth, with every story that he works on, no matter if it's about a funny animal story, or when the pets come to the library, or a city council meeting where they're debating topics that could affect hundreds of thousands of people,” she said. Dylan said watching Sophia work is an incredible experience and she is a “titan of industry in local journalism. “I have tremendous respect for Sophia - not only is she one of my closest friends, but she is also one of the hardest-working people I have ever met. She embodies what it means to be a community journalist and newsroom leader,” he added. “To be a journalist is to be hard on yourself and to constantly strive for better, and Sophia exemplifies that,” he said. Dylan said his experience working at The Item was transformative. “It was so interesting every day to watch as the designer laid out the paper, the editors set the stories, and our publisher oversaw everything. Meeting and working for [Publisher] Ted Grant at The Item was an honor. I respect his dedication to the paper’s communities, and willingness to take a chance on a college kid. His humor and compassion are incredibly admirable,” Dylan said. He added his work would not have been possible without what he has learned in his time studying at FSU’s journalism program. “Liz Banks and Desmond [McCarthy] care very much about giving people a well-rounded journalism education, and I really would say that without the two of them and the expertise that they’ve shown in and outside of class, neither Sophia or I would be the journalists that we are,” Dylan said. Sophia said, “I have a lot of reporters who went to more prestigious schools than I did, but they didn't have Desmond and Liz. Because you can only teach so much about journalism, but you can’t teach passion, and you can’t teach interest or wanting to help students. And I think what's missing with a lot of these programs is they don't have, in my assumption, professors that truly care about the success of their journalism students, whereas Desmond and Liz, they truly cared about us and wanted us to succeed.” Desmond said, "I'm so proud of what Sophia is already accomplishing in her career, and I’m so happy Dylan had an opportunity to work for her as a full-time journalist. “The Gatepost alumni operate effectively as a networking resource for students entering the job market and I am so grateful to all of them for the assistance they provide,” he added.