Andrew Kaczynski, 31, has tragically lost his nine-month-old daughter, Francesa, on Christmas Eve after a fight with cancer. “It’s with a very heavy heart we have to tell you that Francesca passed away last night in her mom and dad’s arms. We just posted her obituary,” the famed reporter revealed in an Instagram post on Christmas day, which included photos of Andrew with his baby girl at the hospital. Andrew shared his daughter, who was his only child, with Wall Street Journal banking reporter Rachel Louise Ensign. A GoFundMe page has been set up in Francesa’s honor, with all donations going directly to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Francesa had ATRT, which is “a rare and aggressive brain tumor typically seen in children under the age of 3,” according to the donation page Andrew linked to in his daughter’s obituary that will benefit pediatric oncology and research for this type of cancer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Before passing away, Andrew gushed that his “Beans” was a “Brooklyn-based Sesame Street fan” who “enjoyed taking long walks around New York City and Boston, playing with her toys and balloons, attending speech therapy, and “petting” (i.e. grabbing) her cat Ryland.” Learn more about Andrew, who is now mourning the loss of his daughter:
1. Andrew is a senior editor at CNN. After joining the news outlet in Oct. 2016, Andrew launched KFile, which is the “leading investigation team for the social, mobile generation,” according to his bio page on CNN. Andrew didn’t make the move alone — his political team from Buzzfeed (Kyle Blaine, Nate McDermott and Christopher Massie) also joined CNN in 2016.
2. The well-known journalist got his start at Buzzfeed in 2011. Andrew and his team became famous for uncovering hypocritical statements from politicians. One of his most popular pieces was an article co-authored with McDermott in 2016, which proved that Donald Trump had voiced his support for the Iraq War in an interview with Howard Stern in 2002, despite Trump’s insistence years later that he was against it. In 2013, Andrew also authored a piece that revealed Kentucky Senator Rand Paul had given speeches that appeared to be plagiarized from Wikipedia.
3. Multiple officials from Trump’s administration resigned due to research that Andrew had uncovered. Andrew’s journalism had major impact. Andrew and his KFile team uncovered Trump administration’s former top appointee, Carl Higbie, making “racist, sexist, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT comments” for a CNN piece in 2018, which led him to resign shortly afterwards. Other officials of Trump’s — Jamie Johnson, Christine Bauserman, William Bradford and Todd Johnson — also resigned after Andrew and his team “looked into them,” according to the Washington Post.
4. Andrew’s Twitter is famous, too. Andrew’s Twitter page has been ranked in lists for Time magazine, Daily Beast and New York Magazine between 2013-2014. He has over 392,000 followers at the moment.
5. The reporter made Forbes’ coveted “30 Under 30” list. Andrew was one of the journalists recognized in Forbes‘ “30 Under 30” media list in 2018.