Elizabeth Farnsworth

Background

Farnsworth was born Elizabeth Fink in 1943 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up in Topeka, Kansas, where her family arrived as pioneers in the 19th century.

Education

She is a graduate of Topeka High School and Middlebury College, where she graduated magna cum laude.

Career

She earned an Master of Arts in Latin American History from Stanford University and lived in Peru and Chile for extended periods. Farnsworth first appeared regularly on national public television in 1975 as a panelist covering Latin America on World Press, produced by KQED in San Francisco. With Stephen Talbot she wrote a column, Dispatches, for The Nation.

With Eric Leenson and Richard Feinberg, she wrote about the economic blockade against Chile during the years Salvador Allende was president

That research became a book, El Bloqueo Invisible, in Buenos Aires in 1973. In 1984 she became a contributing correspondent to the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, later known as The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

In 1995 she became chief correspondent and principal substitute anchor, and in 1999 became senior correspondent and head of the San Francisco office. She has reported in print and on television from the following countries, among others: Vietnam, Cambodia, South of Korea, Japan, Chile, Peru, Guatemala, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Israel (the West Bank and Gaza), Botswana, Malawi and Turkey.

In 2008 Farnsworth and co-producer/director Patricio Lanfranco released The Judge and the General, a feature-length documentary film about the personal transformation of Chilean Judge Juan Guzmán as he tries to bring Augusto Pinochet to justice for human rights crimes.

Farnsworth was a Fellow at the Center for Art Environment of the Nevada Art Museum from 2010 to 2013. In June 2013 an exhibit, Fracked: North Dakota’s Oil boom, featuring photographs by Terry Evans and written by Farnsworth, opened at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. After a year, the exhibit traveled to the North Dakota Museum of Art, and since then it has traveled to other cities in North Dakota.

She also serves on the Advisory Committee of the University of California Berkeley School of Law Human Rights Center.

She received an honorary doctorate degree from Colby College in 2002.

Achievements

• Elizabeth Farnsworth has been listed as a noteworthy Broadcast journalist by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership

Member of advisory board Berkeley Education Foundation, 1990-1995. Board directors Media Alliance, San Francisco, 1985-1987, Data Center, Oakland, California, 1993-1995. Member American Federation television and Radio Artists, NATAS, World Affairs Council (board directors since 1998), Pacific Council on International Policy.

Connections

Married Charles E. Farnsworth, June 20, 1966. Children: Jennifer Farnsworth Fellows, Samuel Mills.

Father:

H. Bernerd Fink

Mother:

Jane (Mills) Fink

Spouse:

Charles E. Farnsworth

child:

Jennifer Farnsworth Fellows Farnsworth

child:

Samuel Mills Farnsworth