Paula Zahn Keynote Speaker

Paula Zahn is an American journalist and newscaster who has been an anchor at ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, and CNN. She currently produces and hosts the true crime documentary series On the Case with Paula Zahn on the Investigation Discovery channel.

At CNN, she anchored the weeknight prime-time evening program, Paula Zahn Now, a program where newsmakers debated controversial issues of the day. Previously, Paula anchored the network’s flagship morning news program, American Morning with Paula Zahn, which she helped launch in fall 2001. Before that, Paula 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 she spent 10 years at CBS News, where she co-hosted CBS This Morning and anchored the CBS Evening News Saturday Edition.

Throughout her career, Paula has interviewed multiple key newsmakers, including former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, Cuban President Fidel Castro, Bishop Desmond Tuto, H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan, former President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev.

Paula has received numerous honours and awards, including eight Emmys, the National Commission of Working Women Broadcasting Award and an AWRT Award for reporting on gender bias in education. Zahn 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, and the Spirit of Life award from the City of Hope Cancer Center. In 2004, Zahn received the Love of Life Foundation’s Tavel-Reznik Award in support of cancer prevention, the Matrix Award for Broadcasting from New York Women in Communications and a National Headliner Award for “Fall of Saddam.” She was also honoured by the Museum of Radio and Television for her body of work.

In 2006, Zahn won a Gracie Award for Paula Zahn Now’s exclusive interview with Carmen bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s sister; a National Headliner award for the program’s newscast about the emergency landing of a Jet Blue Plane, Tornado and Hurricane Rita; and a Freddie award for her interview with U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson about his family’s dealings with breast cancer. In 2007, Zahn won a Gracie Award for Paula Zahn Now: Dana Reeve: A Tribute. Also, in September 2007, she is receiving an Achievement Award for Broadcasting from the Varadi Ovarian Initiative for Cancer Education (VOICE).