NBC 5 adds Ashleigh Barry to reporting staff

Ashleigh Barry, most recently at KPHO and KTVK in Phoenix, will join the KXAS/Channel 5 news team in early October, covering Dallas and focusing on the Dallas Police Department.

In Phoenix, according to a staff announcement by NBC 5 news director Mark Ginther, Barry produced an award-winning series about problems within Veterans Administration hospitals.

Barry’s background includes stops in Lubbock, Milwaukee and Columbus, Ohio, as well as producing experience at Fox News, CBS and MSNBC.

It appears that Barry’s bio has already been removed from the Phoenix stations’ websites. But she attended the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, which featured her in an “Alumni Spotlight” piece.

According to the “Alumni Spotlight” article, she won an Edward R. Murrow Award and an Emmy for “Saving Sarah,” a special she did in Columbus about the abduction of a 13-year-old girl and the slayings of the girl’s 11-year-old brother, mother and a friend of the family.

From the article: “ ‘I pursued that story for a year and I became friends not only with the victim, which was the 13-year-old girl, but also the killer’s mother,’ Barry said. That unique connection allowed her to be the only reporter to tell the killer’s story through the perspective of his mother.”

Barry, who graduated from UMass Amherst in 1999, grew up in Massachusetts. She is described as a passionate animal-rights activist.

This story was originally published September 6, 2016 at 5:08 PM with the headline "NBC 5 adds Ashleigh Barry to reporting staff."