Early life and career
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.

ABC
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.

CBS
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.

Fox News Channel
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. 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
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. and has been an active advocate for issues of cancer awareness in general, and breast cancer in particular.