Paula Zahn

Paula Zahn is the former CNN anchor of Paula Zahn Now, an issues-driven program offering live newsmaker interviews, meaningful discussion, and analysis from an exclusive roster of contributors. Previously, Zahn anchored the network’s flagship morning news program, American Morning with Paula Zahn, which she helped launch in the fall of 2001.

In 2003, Zahn anchored and provided the latest news on Operation Iraqi Freedom, interviewing multiple guests including family members of troops, diplomats, Iraqi-Americans, and politicians. Her first day with CNN, Zahn began continuous on-scene coverage of the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. Throughout those reports, she interviewed multiple rescue workers, survivors, dignitaries, and officials including Jordan’s King Abdullah, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, New York Governor George Pataki, former U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke, and U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch.

Before joining CNN in September 2001, Zahn was host of The Edge with Paula Zahn, a daily news program on FOX News Channel. She joined FOX in 1999 as anchor of its evening news, The FOX Report. Previously, Zahn spent ten years at CBS News, where she co-hosted CBS’s Morning News and anchored the CBS’s Evening News Saturday Edition. She also co-anchored the 1994 Olympic Winter games in Lillehammer, Norway, and served as primetime co-host of the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, France. Earlier, Zahn served as co-anchor of World News This Morning and anchored news segments for Good Morning America on ABC. Zahn joined ABC in November 1987 as anchor of The Health Show.

Zahn began her career at WFAA-TV in Dallas, TX. In 1979, she moved to San Diego to work for KFMB-TV. Zahn also worked at KPRC-TV in Houston, WNEV-TV (now WHDH-TV) in Boston and KCBS-TV in Los Angeles before joining ABC News.

Throughout her career, Zahn has interviewed multiple key newsmakers: former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Cuban President Fidel Castro, former Russian Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, former President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, first lady Betty Ford, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael, and human rights activist Winnie Mandela. Zahn has also interviewed athletes and artists, including tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, actors Faye Dunaway, Katherine Hepburn, Sophia Loren and Warren Beatty, and baseball players Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams.

Zahn has received numerous honors and awards, including an Emmy in 1994 for Outstanding Coverage of a Continuing News Story, which she achieved for her reporting on mainstreaming the mentally disabled into education. Zahn also received the National Commission of Working Women Broadcasting Award, and an AWRT Award for reporting on gender bias in education. She also received an Albert Einstein College of Medicine Spirit Achievement Award, the Second Annual Cancer Awareness Award by the Congressional Families Action for Cancer Awareness, the Spirit of Life award from the City of Hope Cancer Center, and a citation from New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center for her contributions made in the battle against breast cancer.

Zahn, an experienced cellist who began playing when she was five, made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1992 performing with the New York Pops orchestra. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, where she attended on a cello scholarship.