NBC News dumps Ashleigh Banfield

World Net Daily ^ | 3-28-04

[truthandlife]

Less than a year after bashing her own network for its war coverage in Iraq, NBC News reporter Ashleigh Banfield has reportedly been given the axe.

The New York Daily News says the Canadian native has been working without a contract since late January, and she'll no longer be employed at MSNBC where she's been the last four years.

"Regrettably, we were unable to agree on a new assignment for her," an NBC News spokeswoman told the Daily News. "We thank her for her hard work and wish her well."

Banfield's manager, Alfred Geller, added, "Since her contract expired, we have been exploring with a variety of NBC components the possibility of future activity that would include cable and network. At the end of these explorations, we were mutually unable to come to an accommodation that was OK with everybody. It didn't work. Life marches on."

As WorldNetDaily reported last April, Banfield was officially scolded by network President Neal Shapiro for remarks she made ripping her colleagues in TV news for allegedly sugarcoating Iraq war coverage with patriotism and not showing the realities of the conflict.

Banfield, in a speech at Kansas State University, had lashed out at "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic."

Banfield also claimed in her speech TV should have shown the gruesome results of coalition force in Iraq.

"We didn't see what happen when Marines fired M-16s," Banfield said. "We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?"

Reporters embedded with troops said there was little or no opportunity to film the "blood and guts" of the war due to logistical reasons. Many did not see much combat action.

Banfield's address also suggested some cable TV networks skewed their coverage to please advertisers.

"It was a grand and glorious picture that had a lot of people watching," Banfield said, "and a lot of advertisers excited about cable TV news. But it wasn't journalism, because I'm not sure Americans are hesitant to do this again – to fight another war, because it looked to them like a courageous and terrific endeavor."

Banfield hosted "MSNBC Investigates" on the No. 3 cable news network. While MSNBC's ratings improved during the war, the network still came up short in the ratings game behind No. 1 Fox News and CNN.

Lloyd Grove of the Daily News says the 36-year-old former rock singer, "once a fashion icon for her blond tresses and her ever-present on-air glasses ... didn't try to butter up colleagues and supervisors, and instead cast herself as an enemy of the Establishment. She once showed up for anchor duties at MSNBC's Secaucus studios in New Jersey sporting a T-shirt that shouted, in garish glitter: 'Starf--r.'"

[truthandlife]

She needs to go back to Canada. She will fit in very good in that Socialist environment.

[Petronski]

Starf--r.

Huh?

[CindyDawg]

Guess she will write a book now.

[South40]

NBC News dumps Ashleigh Banfield...

...to make room for the next socialist pusbag who will take her place.

[Cicero]

She ought to be able to get a job with CBC.

I think NBC picked her primarily for her looks. I've always thought that the surplus of media posters you see around New York City and at train stations in Westchester are directed as much toward advertising executives and decision makers as they are to us common folks. For a while there, Ashleigh Banfield's face looked down at you from posters all over the city, as the face of NBC news.

It's a good sign if they canned her for being too liberal. I didn't think that was possible.

[jocon307]

I'll throw in some more letters for you:

Starf*cker

I'm not sure what the point is, unless she recently crossed paths with Mick Jagger or some such, but that's the word.

[MinuteGal]

Freepers don't give passes
To Lib-babes with glasses.

Leni

[Don Corleone]

Regrettably, we were unable to agree on a new assignment for her,"

Let her drive the "Zamboni" at the Garden. She's Canadien,Canadian eh! She'll love it.

[Petronski]

I kinda thought that's what it meant, but they really should have put "Star-----r" to indicate the proper number of letters.

[BenLurkin]

[VOA]

Banfield's address also suggested some cable TV networks skewed their coverage to please advertisers.

This ditz is at the wrong network; she needs to talk turkey with PBS, NPR and Pacifica Radio.

[Betaille]

"cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic."
That's pretty short on specifics. What demographic? What cable news operator?
All of the war coverage I saw on CNN was pretty awful and anti-american... so she doesn't seem to be talking about them.
By the way, why did they have someone so obviously anti-war doing "objective" iraq coverage?

[Betaille]

"Banfield hosted "MSNBC Investigates""
Should be called "MSNBC Editorializes". I ask again, why did they have someone so adamantly anti-war doing coverage of IRAQ???

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

So the media's coverage of GWII wasn't objective enough for this Marxist (objective = anti-American). If today's media had reported on WWII, everyone East of the Mississippi would be speaking German and everyone West would be speaking Japanese.

[litehaus]

Was it not this gal who during the Floriduh recount could not add a column of figures on msnbc?

[F16Fighter]

Banfield, in a speech at Kansas State University, had lashed out at "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic."

If the "target demographic" Banfield was after were Leftists, anti-Americans, and corpses, she met ALL her own expectations with flying colors.

[clintonh8r]

Campbell Brown will be next, I hope. I imagine she wears a T-shirt that says Whoeverwilladvancemycareerf***er..

[Bobby777]

ditz (dit*s) - noun, though often used as an adjective

a) One who cannot tell the difference between a democratically-elected President and a terrorist-dictator; i.e., gushing about "Chairman Arafat"
b) An anti-Israeli weeping for the "oppressed" Palestinians giving tacit approval to terrorists
c) A "useful idiot" for the Middle East (reference "Rachel Corrie")

[dawn53]

I think NBC picked her primarily for her looks

A few years ago, after they sent Ashley to the Middle East and she changed her hair color and started wearing those horn rimmed glasses, Glenn Beck came up with a parody song about her changing looks that was hilarious.

The title was "Oh Why is Ashley Banfield Now A Man?"

[Endeavor]

They canned her because she shoved a finger in their faces - it had nothing to do with her liberal politics.

[Endeavor]

She's engaged to some old family money guy in NYC - she'll do ok. Probably start her own network, altho it'd be hard to be any more liberal than CNN and CBS so the competition would be stiff.

[BartMan1]

starf----r.

Rich.

[Azzurri]

"We didn't see what happen when Marines fired M-16s," Banfield said. "We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?"

We didn't see what happens when Saddam rapes women. We didn't see what happens when Saddam tortured and brutally murdered his enemies. Why did we not see this, Ashleigh? Surely somebody who hosted "MSNBC Investigates" should've had time to report those atrocities.

[Focault's Pendulum]

Guess she will write a book now.

Of course.

"The Camera, Me, and My Glasses!"

[SandRat]

I understand that Kim in the DPRK is looking for someone to anchor his chair. She'd fit right in there in one of the last remaining socialist workers paradises.

[Cicero]

I don't watch TV, so I never saw her with glasses on until the picture was posted here.

Big mistake. The network moguls like newsbabes, not horn-rimmed pseudo-intellectuals. Since she hasn't any brains, she needed to be good-looking to make up for it.

[DoctorMichael]

"...I'll throw in some more letters for you:...."

Thanks. I was wondering about the meaning of that too.

[Terry Mross]

I don't like Imus but he played a "satire" of her that was hilarious. You here her say, "Oh, look! There's the hot dog man! Hi, hot do man!"

[Tall_Texan]

LOL!

[abu afak]

Banfield was also Pro-Palestinkian.


"....April 30, 2002
by Alex Safian

MSNBC Crashes the Truth

[....]

Because the real story on Sunday and Monday was the large pro-Israel rallies, the text report – repeated over and over again – was nothing less than disinformation, leaving viewers with an impression exactly the opposite of reality.

The network's coverage emanating from the Middle East has been just as distorted, and has only worsened since "star" reporter Ashleigh Banfield abandoned Afghanistan for Jerusalem. Witnessing Banfield's shaky grasp of the region's realities can be downright painful. In her March 7th broadcast, for example, she repeated – almost verbatim – Arab claims that Israel has been allowed to flout UN Security Council Resolution 242, while Iraq faces sanctions for its refusal to honor supposedly similar UN resolutions:


- - - - "BANFIELD: "...Resolution 242 ... reads like this ... : "a withdrawal of Israel (sic) armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict," clearly making reference to moving the Israelis out of lands that they occupied after the 1967 war. Now that juxtaposed with this resolution, Resolution 687 from 1991 April, "Iraq shall submit to the Secretary-General a declaration on the locations, amounts and types of biological and chemical weapons and agree to urgent, on-site inspection."

... it seems that America is very, very quick to suggest that ... the ... resolution with regard to Iraq needs to be adhered to ..., but when it comes to ... the Israelis need[ing] to withdraw to the 1967 borders, [America seems] more willing to look the other way. Is this hypocritical and because of that, perhaps is an attack on Iraq the wrong thing to do?" - - - -


Banfield, of course, could not be more wrong. The intentional omission of "the territories" in the operative sentence, and the clause Banfield ignored calling for "secure and recognized boundaries," both point to the fact that the Security Council did not envision or require an Israeli pullback to the pre-1967 borders. Indeed, in the UN debate at the time the Soviet Union's representative, Vasily Kuznetsov, complained about just this point:

KUZNETSOV: ... "secure and recognized boundaries". What does that mean? What boundaries are these? Secure, recognized - by whom, for what? Who is going to judge how secure they are? Who must recognize them? ... there is certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far as the lines which it judges convenient. (S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)

Not surprisingly, Israeli figures have argued that by withdrawing from the Sinai, by area 80 percent of the territories captured in 1967, Israel has already satisfied Resolution 242. The Arab states, on the other hand, by refusing for so long even to negotiate, and by continuing to launch attacks against Israel, and even a full-scale war in 1973, violated Resolution 242, numerous other resolutions, and the UN Charter. Banfield, of course, mentions none of this.

Beyond Banfield's gaffes and omissions, her tone betrayed an evident exasperation with what she seemed to view as stiff-necked Israelis who refuse to make peace with their long-suffering Arab neighbors. If anyone is suffering, however, it is Banfield's viewers, who are ill-served by her obvious bias and historical myopia..""

http://world.std.com/~camera/docs/oncamera/msnbc.html

[Tall_Texan]

My guess is she'll join the Liberal Talk Radio Network as soon as Jeanene Garafolo deteriorates into an incoherent mess, which should take roughly a week.

[highlander_UW]

Well, while she's not covering the results of M16's being fired perhaps she can take a little jaunt over to Israel and do a special piece on the risks of being a bus driver.

[cubreporter]

We actually liked her in the beginning but she got too showy, too mouthy, too yakity, yak and obviously...to big headed. As for her saying on her tee shirt. Wow...nice mouth Ashleigh. No wonder she was fired with that kind of smart A__ attitude. Perhaps she'll do better in Canada. Like we care! NOT!!!

[OldFriend]

Perhaps Kerry can hire her for an under the desk assignment. She was so good with the kneepads after all.

[Lancey Howard]

Good riddance to bad garbage.
Canada is perfect for her - - maybe she could be a weatherbabe in Calgary somewhere.

[The Great RJ]

Ashleigh needs to understand that the reason she is being dropped is that no one is watching her or MSNBC/NBC for that matter. Fox News is killing the networks because the vast majority of Americans are sick and tired of the liberal networks telling them what to believe and talking down to them. People are voting with their remotes and Ashleigh is a looser.

[Bush Cheney]

Ashley gets the axe.

[A.A. Cunningham]

Fired twice in less than a week.

[Bonny Dick]

One less anti-American leftist on the air, about 500 to go.

I caught her during the Afghan war, kissing up to some Taliban SOB and never watched her again.

[ConservativeConvert]

She's a moral relativist bit*h. She did a report on Hamas a couple of years ago reporting in glowing terms how they are "real people with real families and real feelings" and that she was invited into their homes and made to feel as a welcome guest. I wrote a reply to MSNBC about her report lambasting the coverage for portraying the bloodthirsty murderers of old women and children as "just average folks" and she read my reply on air the next evening live from in front of Arafats rubble heap in Ramallah. She took the opportunity to suggest that the pain on both sides is so great that she does not judge her subjects. Whatever.

[raloxk]

She is an Islamofascist whore

[texas booster]

She changed her hair way back in Dallas days, from ?? to blond. Soon got promoted and forgot fly-over country.

She really seemed somewhat conservative while here. Playing to the audience, I guess.

[Jabba the Nutt]

"We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke."

Ashleigh could've gone down range, hung out with the Saddam Fedayeen and got some good pictures of mortar rounds hitting. :^0

[gg188]

She once showed up for anchor duties at MSNBC's Secaucus studios in New Jersey sporting a T-shirt that shouted, in garish glitter: 'Starf--r.'"

I'd give anything if a male co-worker had filed a sexual harassment complaint over the shirt.

Any corporation human resources would take very seriously the "f-word" in the workplace, spoken or certainly written or displayed. I am sure most corporations would fire and employee for that.

[eternity]

Thought they were grooming her for Tom Brokaw duties when he goes ten toes up.

[KC_Conspirator]

Banfield's glasses were rumored to be made of titanium and very expesive. I uite frankly had it with her when she made that awful speech at K-State and did a report glorifying the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

[Old North State]

Oh come on, give her a break, she is just the network equivalent of a Playboy Bunny. No one could take her seriously. Besides, I have this fantasy where she is sitting behind her desk and then turns as I come in and she takes of the glasses and......