Ashleigh Banfield (born December 29, 1967) is a Canadian-American journalist who works for CNN and hosts Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield on CNN sister station HLN. Previously, she hosted the legal news program Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield and Early Start and the 11 a.m. hour of CNN Newsroom on CNN.
Banfield was educated in her native Canada at Balmoral Hall School, a private university preparatory school in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which she left in 1985 (also attended by her mother, Suzie (Holland) Lount, in the 1950s). She went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and French from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, in 1988 and continued her studies in French at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, British Columbia, graduating in 1992.
Banfield began her career in 1988 at CJBN-TV in Kenora, Ontario, and at CKY-TV in Winnipeg later that year. From 1989 to 1992, she anchored the weekend news for CFRN-TV in Edmonton. She worked at CICT-TV in Calgary, as a producer from 1992 to 1993 and as evening news anchor and business correspondent from 1993 to 1995. Banfield won two Iris Awards in 1994 in the categories of Best News Documentary and Best of Festival.