Paula Zahn's Crime Wave

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Is there an interview you’ve been working on or haven’t been able to get?
I have one that I’ve gotten but I’m not allowed to talk about it! But we’re constantly working cases; in the case of Ashley Reeves, we called for a good half year before we  got a commitment from her.Are we going to be able to land that exclusive interview with every show? Maybe not, but we’re going to try.

Let’s talk about your earlier career a bit. Your first day at CNN was 9/11. How did that day unfold for you?
I have to admit after all these years, I’m still trying to process it. I had just left Fox News, I was supposed to start working for CNN in the spring of 2002. Then on September 11, 2001, I had just dropped one of my children off at school and I got a call from someone who said, “Turn on CNN now, did you hear what happened?” I remember standing in front of the TV set just being frozen with fear and shock and everything that all of us felt collectively. Once I figured out what the evacuation plan was for all my children and I realized the schools were in lock-down mode, I called my new boss at CNN and said, “Where do you need me?” I could hear he was in the control room and all hell was breaking loose and he said, “I don’t have a show for you until May of 2002. I don’t have producers.” And I said, “Well, I need to come to work today.” And he said, “Oh my god, You’re absolutely right—get to New York headquarters as fast as you can." And I said, "Great, I'll do that. Can you just tell me where the headquarters are?" At that point I'd never been there.

Within minutes of walking in the building, I was on the air, being rolled into the regular coverage, being treated like a long-time colleague by Wolf Blitzer and Aaron Brown—“and Paula Zahn joins us on the roof now.” From the rooftop, you could see the smoke rising, that horrible acrid cloud we watched for weeks and weeks. At any rate, I was on the air, I believe, for eight or nine hours on September 11, and then we made the decision at about 2am on September 12 to start [my] morning show the next day. [It was], “Okay, come back at 4:00 in the morning and let’s start building a show," so that’s what we did.

When I look back on that day, it was so painful for all of us, and there was this collective sense of fear. We were seeing the horror in our own city and we didn’t know just how vulnerable we were and what else might happen. It was an extraordinary experience to be a part of journalistically. I really didn't think much about that being my first night on the air at CNN. What I was more concerned about was that what I got on the air was right. It was very challenging because we were getting so much contradictory information from the scene.

What are your thoughts on the fact that there are now so many women delivering the news, including, soon, two solo network anchors?
I’m very proud that both Katie [Couric] and Diane [Sawyer] have landed their seats. I think that says a lot about the track record of both of them, their level of credibility. The truth is, at most of the places where I have worked, including at the network level, we always had close to 50% [women] reporters on the air, so I don’t think this comes as a great surprise. It's a result of some slow, gradual changes in the ’80s. We’ve worked hard, we’ve earned our slots. Women have proved their mettle on and off the air.

Do you have any thoughts on where news reporting is going to go next?
I wish I could look at a crystal ball and tell you. The bottom line is that people don’t come to the evening news like they once did, hearing it for the first time during the day. Most people now are getting their news online, they’re still getting it on the radio, and in some cases they’re turning to Jon Stewart as their source of political news. People have a lot of options for getting information. That’s why you see cable news changing so dramatically. What's obviously working in prime time is more opinion-driven shows. Whether you label it as opinion or not, that’s the major change in cable. I don’t think any of us know where these new changes are taking us. But I do believe that a show like I’m doing now does have sea legs. I believe people will always be interested in complex stories about crime and how the justice system works.

"On the Case With Paula Zahn" airs on Sunday nights on the Investigation Discovery channel.

Read about Mika Brzezinski's second act here.