Facts about Paula Zahn
Paula Zahn Biography
Paula Zahn is the former TV news personality who in 2009 began work as an executive producer and title host of the crime show On the Case with Paula Zahn.
Paula Zahn grew up in Ohio and Illinois, and graduated from Naperville Central High School (near Chicago) in 1974. She used a cello scholarship to attend Stephens College in Missouri, graduating in 1978, and from there she jumped into the TV news business.
After working her way through the ranks of local stations in Dallas, Boston and elsewhere, and then serving a three-year stint at ABC News, she became a co-anchor for CBS This Morning. She held that post from 1990 to 1996, and also co-hosted the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics in 1992 and again in 1994.
Zahn then joined the Fox News Network in 1999 and became host of the news program The Edge. On September 5, 2001 she was fired by Fox News, which accused her of breaching her contract; the next day she signed with rival news network CNN, and was on the air for the infamous attacks of September 11th. Zahn remained with CNN until 2007, when she announced she would leave the network, saying “For the first time in 30 years, I’m going to take a break here.”
In 2009 she began hosting On the Case with Paula Zahn, a true-crime show on the Investigation Discovery channel. The show became a long-running hit: its 300th episode aired on December 6, 2020.
Extra credit
Paula Zahn married businessman Richard Cohen in 1987. They had three children: daughter Haley and sons Jared and Austin. Zahn filed for divorce from Cohen in 2007… Paula Zahn has continued to play the cello and made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1992, playing with the New York Pops orchestra… In a 1990 interview on Later With Bob Costas, Paula Zahn said “I’m a classically-trained cellist, majored in music in college.” Some other sources, including Wikipedia, say she majored in journalism. A 2012 feature in the Stevens College alumni magazine is inconclusive, saying she “returned her senior year to complete her music studies” but also decided to “pursue journalism.” Who2 believes that music is the correct major, but have not been able to confirm this conclusively.