An accomplished journalist, writer and producer-director, Farnsworth joined the NewsHour as a contributing correspondent in 1984 and became chief correspondent and principal substitute anchor in 1995. She became a senior correspondent in October 1999 to concentrate primarily on covering foreign affairs and the arts from the NewsHour office in San Francisco. She left the full-time staff in 2004 but continues as a "Special Correspondent," reporting from Latin America and the Middle East, among other places. She is director/co-producer of a feature-length documentary, "Judging Pinochet," which is currently in production.

Elizabeth Farnsworth’s latest project is the launch of her documentary The Judge and the General, a documentary which follows the investigation by Juan Guzmán, the judge assigned by lottery to investigate charges against the former president of Chile, General Pinoche. Guzman opposed the democratically elected Salvador Allende and supported General Pinochet until he began to investigate the charges of murder (in Chile judges investigate the cases). Farnsworth produced the film with filmmakers Patricio Lanfranco and Richard Pearce. The Judge and the General airs nationally on the PBS series P.O.V. August 19, 2008.

Farnsworth's writings have appeared in Foreign Policy, World Policy Journal, The San Francisco Chronicle and The Nation, among other publications. She also has produced and directed several hour-long television documentaries for PBS, including "Thanh's War," which aired in 1991 (and for which Farnsworth's script was nominated for a regional Emmy), and "The Gospel and Guatemala" (co-produced with Stephen Talbot), which aired in 1984. Her films have won numerous awards, among them a CINE Golden Eagle, an American Film and Video Festival Blue Ribbon Award, the Asian-American Journalists Association Award for best television program, and the San Francisco International Film Festival Golden Gate Award.

Farnsworth has covered international events on location for the NewsHour in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Haiti, Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, Nicaragua, Korea, Japan, Chile, and the U.S., among other places. In 2001, she reported from Malawi and Botswana on the AIDS crisis in Africa in a special four-part series, which received the 2001 Silver World Medal from the New York Festivals plus an Emmy nomination. In the months following September 11th, Farnsworth journeyed to Egypt and Saudi Arabia to report on attitudes in those countries towards the U.S. and terrorism. Since then, she has reported from Turkey, Israel, Venezuela, Iran and Iraq.

Farnsworth's short-form television pieces also have won many awards, including the Thomas More Storke International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council of Northern California and the Best Investigative Reporting Award from the Northern California Radio, Television News Directors Association.

Farnsworth graduated from Middlebury College in 1965, earned her master's in Latin American history from Stanford University in 1966 and lived in Peru and Chile for extended periods. She is married, has two children, and lives in Berkeley, California.