Ashleigh Banfield

Ashleigh Banfield Open Court
Weekdays 9-11am E/P

Veteran journalist Ashleigh Banfield is anchor of the trial coverage program Ashleigh Banfield Open Court.

Banfield, who joined In Session in July 2005, previously served as both a correspondent and anchor for NBC News and its sister cable network, MSNBC, covering some of the world’s biggest events. She reported live from the World Trade Center in New York City following the terrorist attacks on 9/11, for which she received an Emmy Award, and later traveled to countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon to cover the War on Terror.

Before that, Banfield was a news anchor for KDFW-TV, the FOX affiliate in Dallas, where she received her first Emmy and a Texas Associated Press Award. She also freelanced as an associate producer in Russia for ABC’s “World News Tonight,” covering the Bush/Gorbachev Summit in 1991 and the Clinton/Yeltsin summit in 1992. She began her career in television journalism in 1988 as a photographer, researcher, and reporter in Ontario, Canada.

Banfield received a bachelor’s degree in political studies and French from Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada in 1988, and later continued her language education in an Advanced French Studies program at the University of British Columbia.