Meet: Jacqueline LeKachman

·16 min·1 clip

Jacqueline LeKachman explains why her first reported essay about her mom’s hoarding changed how she saw journalism.

1. 15 Minute Story records Jacqueline LeKachman’s conversation on Craig Newmark’s campus, where she talks with Olivia about the Jay School and her move from magazines to news. 2. Jacqueline is a first-semester Jay School student and freelance writer, and Olivia frames the interview around her background in family, sex, mental health, and cultural writing. 3. Her core tension is between reported personal essays and the Jay School’s focus on spot stories, objective news, and breaking-news deadlines. 4. She says she has spent three years freelancing for online magazines, while the Jay School now asks her to produce spot stories within three hours. 5. Jacqueline points to Zoran Mamdani’s election as New York City’s next mayor and her election-day interviews at 6 a.m. as an example of fast-moving coverage. 6. She says the class Substack kept publishing pieces through the day, which let her see “all the different pockets of New York” represented in one news cycle. 7. Her first instinct toward journalism came from writing about her mother’s compulsive hoarding, family estrangement, and the lack of language she had for those experiences. 8. She says a reported personal essay about her mom’s hoarding resonated with readers and led her to interview experts who validated hoarding disorder as a mental health condition. 9. Jacqueline also says teaching at Title One schools, including a school where 80% of students were Caribbean and recently arrived immigrants, gave her a stronger sense of how language, trust, and representation shape reporting. 10. Listeners interested in journalism, teaching, and personal essays.

As heard by us

A thoughtful campus profile linking teaching experience, reporting, and careful listening.

Recorded live on Craig Newmark's campus, this episode follows Jacqueline Legashman, a first semester Jay School student who has spent the past three years freelancing for national magazines.

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A campus interview with a first-semester J-school student who brings teaching and freelance writing into the room.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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