SHORT TAKES : Zahn: Job Is No Beauty Contest

PHILADELPHIA — Paula Zahn, the new co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” rejects the notion that she is in a beauty contest with two other network blondes, ABC’s Joan Lunden and NBC’s Deborah Norville.

“I find that very insulting,” Zahn told TV Guide in its March 24 issue. “I’ve been in the news business for 13 years. I’m bringing to this broadcast a lot of experience working in different parts of the country covering many different types of stories.

“I’ve interviewed world leaders. To reduce it to that kind of battle, I find it very offensive.”

Zahn, 34, is the latest in a line of female co-anchors on CBS’s third-place morning show, following Phyllis George, Mariette Hartley and Kathleen Sullivan. She knows there are no guarantees of job security.

“There are bound to be changes if a program isn’t producing the kinds of audiences that executives want,” she told the magazine. “There will be constant tinkering to deliver the best product, and the most profitable product, that we can. Those changes are an everyday reality.”