Zahn out, Campbell in at CNN

ATLANTA, July 25 (UPI) -- CNN officially announced former NBC news anchor Campbell Brown will succeed Paula Zahn in U.S. cable news's hot seat -- the 8 p.m. Eastern time slot.

Zahn, a fixture on network and cable news for two decades, wraps up her "Paula Zahn Now" duties next week. Substitute hosts will fill in until November, when Brown, formerly an anchor on "Weekend Today," is scheduled to take over, USA Today reported Tuesday.

"I leave here with nothing but pride in the good journalism we were able to get on the air," Zahn, 51, told the newspaper. "We kept our standards very high."

She called the 8 p.m. hour the "toughest" in cable news because "that hour is when the audience is drawn in by opinion and that's not what I do."

The time slot goes against Fox's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, both very outspoken commentators.

Praising her professionalism and dedication, CNN chief Jon Klein said Zahn "used her on-air platform to tap into issues that were underrepresented in the national dialogue."