American journalist and newscaster Paula Zahn has been associated with major networks like ABC News, Fox News, CBS News and CNN in her career spanning over four decades.

Multiple Emmy award-winning news veteran is currently a producer and host of the true-crime documentary series On the Case with Paula Zahn. 

Paula Zahn’s early life and early career

Paula Ann Zahn was born on February 24, 1956, in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father was an IBM sales executive officer, and her mother was a school teacher. She grew up in Canton, Ohio, with her three siblings. Later, her father’s job required them to relocate to Naperville, Illinois.

Paula Zahn is a great fan of music and plays cello.

Zahn attended Washington Junior High School and later graduated from Naperville Central High School. Likewise, she went to Stephens College on a cello scholarship and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1978. 

Paula competed in several beauty pageants and reached the semi-finals of the 1973 Miss Teenage America Pageant. She started collecting knowledge of the news industry by working as an intern at Chicago-based WBBM-TV.

After graduation, she spent the next decade working at local stations around the nation, including WFAA-TV in Dallas, KFMB-TV in San Diego, KPRC-TV in Houston, and WHDH-TV in Boston KCBS-TV in Los Angeles.

Paula Zahn’s early success: From ABC News, CBS News and Fox News

Paula Zahn joined ABC News in 1987 to anchor The Health Show, a weekend show on health and medical issues. After a few months, she earned a position as a co-anchor of World News This Morning and anchored news segments of Good Morning America.

Paula Zahn smiling for a picture while working on computer

 Zahn moved to CBS News in 1990 to co-anchor CBS This Morning with Harry Smith. Similarly, she covered the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Afterward, Paula began anchoring the Saturday edition of CBS Evening News in 1996. And later, Zahn substituted Dan Rather during the week. She also contributed reports to Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, 48 Hours and CBS News Sunday Morning.

Paula’s next workstation was Fox News after a nine-year-long tenure at CBS. She anchored the network’s nightly newscast Fox Report for a few months. Moreover, she received her show The Edge with Paula Zahn. After two years, FNC learned that she was negotiating with CNN and fired her. FNC stated their act as a result of the breach of her contract.

 

Paula Zahn’s random exit from CNN & come back to Investigation Discovery a year later.

She joined CNN in 2001, and her very first assignment at the network was to cover September 11 terrorist attacks. She started co-anchoring the morning news program American Morning with Anderson Cooper the next day. The accomplished journalist has amassed a net worth of about $18 million to date. 

Paula Zahn in CNN

During the Iraq War in 2003, she hosted a two-hour-long show, Live from the Headlines. Moreover, the show offered coverage of the war and other events. That same year, she got her show, Paula Zahn Now.

Paula announced her resignation from CNN on July 24, 2007, and the final broadcast of her show was aired on August 2, 2007. For some time, guest co-hosts continued her show under Out in the Open. But later was replaced by election campaign coverage and finally by Campbell Brown: No Bias, No Bull.

According to Paula, she left the channel for an unplanned hiatus. “I plan to take a break between jobs and catch my breath before I take on my next role,” she wrote in a goodbye letter penned for her colleague at CNN.

Paula Zahn on ID

Paula returned to the news business in November 2008 as the host of SundayArts (now called NYC-ARTS) on New York City-based PBS affiliates, WNET and WLIW. She is currently associated with Investigation Discovery as the host of a true-crime documentary series called On the Case with Paula Zahn, which she has been hosting since October 2009.

Paula Zahn knows well how to cope with cancer.

It is the first show on the network to have reached 100 episodes. The show has already been aired for 14 seasons and 200 episodes. Paula travels throughout the country interviewing people about their tragic cases and presents them on the show.

 

After the end of their 20-year-long marriage, Paula Zahn became single

Paula Zahn is a mother of three children, Austin Bryce and Jared Brandon Cohen and Haley Cohen. Her kids’ father is her ex-husband Richard Cohen, to whom she was married from 1987 to 2007.

Paula Zahn with husband Richard Cohen
Paula Zahn with her ex-husband, Richard Cohen

 After a divorce, news surfaced in the media that her affair with Paul Fribourg contributed to dissolving their 20 years long marriage. However, Paula denied the allegations. She has been single since then.