Ashleigh Banfield on CNN morning - Where the fuck did this woman come from?

Has anyone ever seen this woman? She's on CNN's Early Start which I've recently started watching due to an earlier work day. Absolutely, eye-blinkingly moronic. She used to be on Good Morning America (when I watched it) and she seemed harmless enough, but here she comes across as mildly retarded and completely unaware of what an embarrassment she is. Just in the last couple of days she's held her finger in the air, did a "ghetto girl" voice, rolled her shoulder and said "Oh NO they Di'INNNN"... When talking to a correspondent about the Repuke debate Wednesday night she said something about how there's an Australian saying about chopping down poppies or something... both the correspondent and her co-host just stared blankly back at her and never acknowledged it. This chick is the Kathie Lee Gifford of CNN and makes Good Morning America look like PBS.

http%3A//www.zimbio.com/Ashleigh+Banfield/articles/1Cu2up0n-uu/Ashleigh+Banfield+Join+ABC+News+Unspecified



• I don't know exactly where she originated from but she was in the Dallas news market for a while (don't remember the channel). She was actually one of the more charismatic reporters here and when she left years ago, the feeling was she was going to go on to greater things as a serious journalist. But something happened along the way - instead of raising up in quality she seems to have dumbed it down.

• I remember her near Ground Zero covering 9/11 the day it happened. I think she might've been running from a cloud of smoke barrelling down the street at one point.

• I believe she rose to national prominence during 9/11. Not sure what network she was with, but she happened to be on the scene that day and did an awful lot of the coverage over the next couple weeks.

• R1, she seems perfect for the tabloidy, cheesy, all-things-women Good Morning America so I'm not sure why they would have gotten rid of her. Or perhaps she just left on her own. Either way, she's poorly suited for any desk job at CNN, in my opinion anyway. She's just moronically cooky.

• I watch her on "In Session" the court channel, she seems very smart. I like her alot.

• Yes frau @ R5. We know.

• She's from western Canada. Westerners are not the brightest of Canadians.

• She was an anchor on MSNBC's afternoon program before 9/11. She was who they had in downtown Manhattan on the day it happened, and frankly, I thought her reporting was some of the best they did. That made her a star pretty much instantly, and she got her own primetime slot, but ended up being thrown under the bus when MSNBC tried to tack rightward in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. I'm kind of surprised she's ended up on CNN, but she has to be at least a moderate improvement over most of their current slate of female anchors.

  The Voice of the Night

• [quote]I believe she rose to national prominence during 9/11. Not sure what network she was with At that time she was a rising star at MSNBC. According to Wikipedia: [quote]In April 2003, in a speech at Kansas State University, Banfield raised concerns regarding media coverage of the conflict in Iraq. She also spoke against "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic", and specifically named Fox News Channel as an example. The New York Times reported that her speech angered NBC management, who rebuked her and lowered her profile. [quote]"I was office-less for ten months ... No phone, no computer. For ten months I had to report to work every day and ask where I could sit. If somebody was away I could use their desk. Eventually, after ten months of this, I was given an office that was a tape closet. They cleared the tapes out and put a desk and a TV in there, and a computer and phone. It was pretty blatant. The message was crystal clear. Yet they wouldn't let me leave. I begged for seventeen months to be let out of my contract. If they had no use for me, let's just part ways amicably—no need for payouts, just a clean break. And [NBC News President Neal Shapiro] wouldn't allow it. I don't know what his rationale was—perhaps he thought I would take what I felt was a very strong brand, and others felt was a very strong brand, to another network and make a success of it. Maybe that's why he chose to keep me in a warehouse. I will never forgive him for his cruelty and the manner in which he decided to dispose of me."

• [quote]Maybe that's why he chose to keep me in a warehouse. I will never forgive him for his cruelty and the manner in which he decided to dispose of me." MARY! I love how easily many women use words like "cruelty" to describe the fact they weren't given nice offices or break contracts. Amazing. No wonder she's got a huge DL female following.

• Does anyone remember what she said or did that made her persona non grata for a while? There was a flap over something she did.

  Googling now

• Thanks R9.

  R11

• I liked her for her work on MSNBC but her morning show is a trainwreck. The Daily Show had a hilarious bit on her weird segment of just opening the rollodex and randomly calling people and waking them up. In one clip she calls someone and wakes them up and tells them it's the FBI. And when she calls Kathleen Kennedy she asks her about her dad's assassination. It was fucking bizarre.

• She is Canadian

• Thanks OP. When I went to that site, I found this article on rappers who are Republican. If not for that article, I would never thought about 50 Cent and LL Cool J being Republican. Can some kind paying members start a new thread on Rappers who are Repug? Thank you.

  http://www.zimbio.com/Republicans+in+Rap/articles/j2Wf_vmqKjg/Namechecking+the+GOP

• She was punished for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the invasion of Iraq. She dared to opine that journalists should be objective outsider observers rather than cozily "embedded" stenographers doing PR for the Pentagon. NBC being a major war profiteering corporation had no use for such heresy.

• 9/11 made her career.

• Thanks for opening the thread OP. I have always been very perplexed by her. She is simply too bizarre. HOWEVER, I am very pleased to hear about her comments about Fox News and the Iraq War. That redeems her. I might not think bad thoughts about her from now on.

• I remember reading somewhere - and I can't remember where - about her being camped out on the lawn of the Kennedy compound following the death of the JKR Jr. in a t-shirt that read "star fucker". She sounds nuts, but I guess she isn't self righteous and dull like Soledad O'Brien

• Here she is prank calling Kerry Kennedy at 5 am to ask her if she has "haunting memories" of her father's assassination!

  http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/jon-stewart-cnns-prank-calling-kennedys-5-morning-video-34286

• She's from WINNIPEG!

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Banfield

  That%20explains%20a%20lot...

• [quote]From Wiki: She was also a backup singer for the band The Rusty River Rafters and member of a bar band. She is a cigar aficionado and enjoys Cuban cigars. She is all over the place.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashleigh_Banfield

• >>>rank calling Kerry Kennedy at 5 am to ask her if she has "haunting memories" of her father's assassination What in the hell is wrong with her? It sounds like she has developed a mental problem. Seriously. I am shocked that she still has her job

• R8, Throw in the CNN males as well. Whoever is running Cesspool Noose Network has turned it into an outlet for rightwing corporatists.

• She was fun to watch when she did local news in Dallas. She developed a crush on Troy Aikman and began to literally stalk him, which led to her demise in Big D.

• She talks too much and seems to think everything she says is so important and brilliant. I bet her co-hosts hate her. She had the gall to say that she thought that "aspirin between the knees" idiot Foster Friese was a nice guy and that she liked him. What a dolt.

• CNN actually has a regular segment where the "news anchors" prank call people at 5 a.m. to wake them up? This is what passes for "journalism" these days?

• CNN is useless unless there's a big disaster or uprising going on in the world, they have all the resources to do an outstanding job when it comes to those kinds of stories, but for day to day news/politics, they tend to suck at it.

• You do realize that she was fired for calling out George Bush right?

• She apparently spent some time as a war correspondent. Maybe she has PTSD.

• R29, call me names all you like but I'm one of those rare types who thinks a journalist should be a journalist. He calling out GWB, as much as I hated him, was shit Faux News does. I agree with MSNBC disciplining her over it. Oh, and yeah, she really does come across as a moron.

• As I recall, it wasn't just her calling out of GWB that led to her firing from MSNBC. Her star had already started to fade. After 9/11, she instantly became a hot commodity and was known as the news babe with the glasses. She was all over MSNBC, which even sent her to Pakistan to host a regular show on the "war on terror." But it became apparent that she didn't have the skills to handle such big assignments, and the fascination with her faded, so MSBNC began scaling back her assignments. I think the whole "MSNBC fired me because I criticized Bush" is mostly Ashleigh's way of trying to put the best spin on the situation.

• Yeah, but if she proved to be a numbskill, networks are skilled at patting those sorts on the head and sending them on their way. The way they punished her seemed so surreal.

• Was watching this morning when she had a complete meltdown over Rush Limpballs. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're "outraged", but so is everyone else with a brain cell so pandering to and patronizing your audience is a bit insulting. I'll be surprised if what she did this morning doesn't make headlines, at least on the web. She totally melted down and began screaming over having been called a "slut" herself on MSNBC and how horribly she was treated by that network and how other radio commentators have called her a "whore". She started pounding the desk and and waving her arms over the nasty names she's been called during her career. Whoever called her these names should have been canned but sorry, I never knew who this woman was a few weeks ago, how the hell is she well known enough to have been called these names even by nazi'esque conservative commentators? She literally made the entire story all about her, and her cohost, Zoraida Sambolin sat there with huge saucer eyes and looked like she wanted to dig a hole under her desk and crawl into it. This Banfield chick isn't right in the head and I'll be stunned if CNN keeps her at an anchor desk for much longer. She sounds like she needs help.

• Aww, R10's mommy liked her brothers more.

• Oh dear. Somebody needs more hugs from daddy.

• She was a laughing stock when she wento Afghanistan She'd been blonde and she dyed her hair brown, because her real hair color was brown and she klnew that -- being in a war zone -- she wouldn't be able to get her roots touched up once a month anymore, so she went "natural." Then she said no, she dyed her hair to look more like a local. Yeah. That's the story.

• [quote]she said something about how there's an Australian saying about chopping down poppies or something. She was no doubt talking about Tall Poppy Syndrome:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

• R37 - She might be able to make it as talking head on MSNBC. I suspect I'd agree with her, politically speaking on pretty much everything judging from what I've heard her say. But she just isn't a "journalist" and isn't cut out to be. She's unable to maintain professionalism and objectivity while anchoring. She really is embarrassing but I think she just hasn't been put in a position where her talents can shine. Maybe they should use her as Joy Behar's replacement at HLN. Hell, give her Piers Morgan's chair. He's a moron and absolutely NOBODY likes him anyway.

• Is this CNN's equivalent of Morning Joe, where the blonde woman says idiotic things and everyone just looks at her?

• Sort of, r40, but in her case I don't think it's part of any shtick. I heart aches for her cohost whose career dies a little bit more, by association, everytime BanBuffoon opens her mouth.

• I first saw her on MSNBC about 12 years ago. She covered 9-11, and I remember her being down at Ground Zero on a daily basis.

• She is Canadian.

• I love her for this

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DclnGrA5gg7g

• I like CNN, but this woman, Ashley Banfield, is very anoying. She interrupts her guests constantly. She talks too much and injects her opinion everywhere. She is not as well educated as the other CNN anchors, but she wants to sound like a lawyer. She loves to hear herself talk. I find myself saying: "Shut up! let the expert talk!" I usually have to change the channel before I get a heart attack.

  Jon

• There's not room at MSNBC for both her and S E Cupp. Although the idea of the two of them co-hosting a show would be ... different!

• I haven't liked this chick for a decade.

• She's Canadian.