Ashleigh Banfield's Biography
May 24, 2010— -- Ashleigh Banfield is an Emmy Award-winning correspondent for ABC News, reporting for "Good Morning America," "20/20," and "Nightline." She joined the network in January 2010.
Over the course of her career, Banfield has covered breaking news from across the country and around the globe. Prior to joining ABC News, she anchored and hosted three programs on TruTV (formerly Court TV), including a daily legal news program "Banfield and Ford: Courtside;" the weekly evening show "Hollywood Heat;" and the successful prime time special series that she created and co-produced, "Disorder in the Court."
Banfield covered the terrorist attacks of September 11th for NBC News, reporting live from the World Trade Center in New York City, work which earned her Emmy Award recognition. After eight consecutive days at Ground Zero, Banfield departed for Islamabad, Pakistan to begin covering the War on Terror. From September 2001 to January 2004, she reported live from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, England, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia. This work earned Banfield and team a National Headliner Award.
During this time, she also anchored several prime time series on MSNBC, including "A Region In Conflict" and "Ashleigh Banfield: On Location." She hosted these programs from locations around the globe, covering breaking news stories that included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the conflict in Israel, and the abduction of Elizabeth Smart in Salt Lake City.
As a correspondent for NBC News from 2000-2004, Banfield reported for "The Today Show," "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw," and "Dateline." As an anchor at MSNBC, she covered the crash of the Concorde on location in France, the 2000 presidential election, and the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.
Her most noted interviews include Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Saudi Prince Al Faisal, Laura Bush, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, John McCain, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jane Fonda, Ben Stiller, Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump, and Hugh Grant.
Prior to joining MSNBC, Banfield served as the evening news anchor for KDFW-TV, the FOX affiliate in Dallas. While there, she received her first Emmy Award for "Best News Anchor" for her coverage on "Cadet Killers" and a Texas Associated Press Award for the series "To Serve and Survive." Prior to that, Banfield worked at Canada's CICT-TV, as a producer from 1992-93 and from 1993-95 as their evening news anchor and business correspondent. In 1994, Banfield earned two IRIS awards for the "Best News Documentary" and "Best of Festival" categories, where she chronicled the life of a homeless man.
Before, and during, her tenure at CICT-TV, Banfield freelanced as an associate producer for ABC's "World News Tonight," where she covered the 1991 Bush/Gorbachev Summit in Russia and the 1992 Clinton/Yeltsin Summit in Vancouver.
In 1988, Banfield began her career at CJBN in Kenora, Ontario, Canada as a photographer, researcher, and reporter and then later moved to Winnipeg's CKY station as a researcher/reporter for their evening news. From 1989 to 1991, she served as weekend evening news anchor at CFRN in Edmonton, Alberta.
Banfield received a bachelor's degree in political studies and French from Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. In 1992, she continued her language education in an Advanced French Studies program at the University of British Columbia.
Banfield resides in Connecticut with her husband, Howard Gould, and their two sons.