| Paula Zahn |
 |
|
|
| Statistics |
| Occupation |
newscaster |
| Gender |
Female |
| Spouse |
Richard Cohen (separated) |
| Children |
Haley, Jared, and Austin. |
| Ethnicity |
Caucasian |
| Notable credit(s) |
The Edge anchor (1996–2001)
American Morning anchor (2002–2003)
Paula Zahn Now anchor (2003–2007)
|
|
Paula Zahn (born February 24, 1956 in
Omaha, Nebraska) is an American newscaster, most recently the host of Paula Zahn NOW on CNN. On
24 July, 2007, she announced her resignation from CNN. The final
broadcast of Paula Zahn Now aired August 2, 2007.[1]
Early life and career
Zahn initially grew up in Canton, Ohio with her parents and three siblings. The family
relocated to Naperville, Illinois, as her father's job as an IBM sales excutive required them to move frequently. She once joked that "IBM" really stood for "I've been moved".
She attended Naperville Central High School, graduating in 1974. She also
competed in several beauty pageants, making the finals of the 1973 Miss Teenage America Pageant.[2] Zahn continued her education at Stephens
College in Columbia, Missouri on a cello scholarship, and received firsthand
knowledge of the news business by working as an intern at WBBM-TV in Chicago, Illinois. She graduated in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in journalism. Zahn then
spent the next 10 years working at local stations around the country, including WFAA-TV in
Dallas, Texas, KFMB-TV in San Diego, California, KPRC-TV in Houston, Texas, WHDH-TV (then WNEV) in
Boston, Massachusetts, and KCBS-TV in
Los Angeles, California.
ABC
In 1987, Zahn accepted an offer to work at ABC News, initially anchoring The Health
Show, a weekend program on health and medical issues. Within a few months she was co-anchoring World News This Morning, the network's early morning newscast, and anchoring news segments on
Good Morning America.
CBS
Due to her work on Good Morning America, in 1990 she was offered a job at CBS News, which she took,
co-anchoring CBS This Morning with Harry
Smith. After changes were made at the morning show in 1996 she went on to work as anchor of the Saturday edition of the
CBS Evening News, as well as substituting for Dan
Rather during the week, and contributing reports to 48 Hours,
Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, and CBS News
Sunday Morning. While with CBS, she also helped cover the 1992 Winter
Olympics in Albertville, France with Tim McCarver, and the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
Fox News Channel
After nine years at CBS News, she moved to the world of cable news, joining Fox News
Channel (FNC), where she anchored FOX Report, the network's nightly newscast.
Months later, she helped launch her own prime time news program, The Edge with
Paula Zahn. Two years later, FNC discovered she was in negotiations with CNN over a possible move there and fired her
for what they alleged was a breach of her contract. A suit FNC filed against her agent was subsequently thrown out by a
New York State Supreme Court judge. In the aftermath of this controversial
departure, media reports noted a negative campaign against Zahn on the part of FNC, both on and off the air.[3]
CNN
Zahn began her work at CNN on September 11, 2001, joining anchor Aaron Brown in the coverage of the
events of that day. She began her scheduled morning shift the next day, and
by January she launched her CNN morning news program titled American Morning with
Paula Zahn. Over that first weekend of January 2002, CNN aired an advertisement for
American Morning which called Zahn "sexy" and paired the adjective with a "needle pulled off record" sound effect some
interpreted to be a zipper opening. The ad was quickly pulled after the network received significant criticism for what was
considered an undignified and sexist portrayal of a serious journalist. CNN attributed the ad's content to a lack of
oversight.
In 2003, during the war in Iraq, Zahn moved back to
prime time, hosting a two-hour program labeled Live from the Headlines which
offered continuing coverage of the war and other events. Anderson Cooper took over the
first of the two hours by early summer, and by September, her show Paula Zahn NOW premiered.
On July 24, 2007, Zahn announced that August 2,
2007 would be her last day at the network. [4] The announcement came less than a day after CNN hired Campbell Brown, the former co-host of Weekend Today. Brown
is expected to take Zahn's timeslot.
Future plans
According to Zahn's goodbye letter penned to CNN staff, she stated "I plan to take a break between jobs and catch my breath
before I take on my next role." [5] In a New York Times interview, which was conducted right after the announcement of her resignation broke,
Zahn told Jacques Steinberg that "she had no idea what she would be doing next".
[6]
Personal
Zahn has three children, and was married to Richard Cohen, a New York City real estate developer. The couple was in the news
when there was an attempt to remove the nest of the well publicized Pale Male from their co-op
building in 2004.[7] In April
2007, Zahn announced she was divorcing Cohen after 20 years of marriage.[8]
An accomplished cellist, Zahn played at Carnegie Hall in May
1992 with the New York Pops Orchestra.[9] She is also an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation,[10] and has been an active advocate for issues of cancer awareness in general, and breast cancer in
particular.
References
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
