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Based in the network's New York bureau, Paula Zaun also hosts People in the News, CNN's feature-format program with PEOPLE magazine profiling newsmakers from politics, sports, business, medicine, and entertainment.
Previously, Paula anchored the network's flagship morning news program, American Morning with Paula Zahn, which she helped launch in fall 2001.
In 2003, Paula Zaun anchored and provided the latest news on Operation Iraqi Freedom, interviewing multiple guests, including family members of troops, diplomats, Iraqi-Americans, and politicians. On her first day with CNN, Paula began continuous on-scene coverage of the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York. In the course of that reporting, she interviewed multiple rescue workers, survivors, dignitaries and officials, including Jordan's King Abdullah, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, N.Y. Gov. George Pataki, former U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke and U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, to name a few.
Before joining CNN in September 2001, Paula Zaun 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, Paula spent 10 years at CBS News, where she co-hosted CBS Morning News and anchored the CBS 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, Paula served as co-anchor of World News This Morning and anchored news segments of Good Morning America on ABC. Paula Zaun joined ABC in November 1987 as anchor of The Health Show.
Paula began her career at WFAA-TV in Dallas. In 1979, she moved to San Diego to work for KFMB-TV. Paula 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, Paula has interviewed multiple key newsmakers, including the following: former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Cuban President Fidel Castro, former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan, former President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, first lady Betty Ford, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael and human rights activist Winnie Mandela. Paula has also interviewed athletes and artists, including tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, actress Faye Dunaway, baseball player Ted Williams, actress Katherine Hepburn, actor Warren Beatty, baseball player Joe DiMaggio and actress Sophia Loren.
Paula Zaun has received numerous honors and awards, including a 1994 Emmy for Outstanding Coverage of a Continuing News Story for her reporting on mainstreaming the mentally disabled into education, the National Commission of Working Women Broadcasting Award and an AWRT Award for reporting on gender bias in education. Paula 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 to the battle against breast cancer.
Paula, an experienced cellist who began playing when she was 5, made her Carnegie Hall debut in 1992 performing with the New York Pops orchestra.
Paula earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., attending on a cello scholarship. |