David Jason Muir (/ˈmjʊər/MURE; born November 8, 1973) is an American journalist and anchor for ABC World News Tonight and co-anchor of the ABC News magazine 20/20, part of the news department of the ABC broadcast-television network, based in New York City. Muir previously served as the weekend anchor and primary substitute anchor on ABC's World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer before succeeding her on September 1, 2014. At ABC News, Muir has won multiple Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards for his national and international journalism. He was the 2024 recipient of the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism.[1] Muir won the Emmy for Outstanding Live News Program in both 2023 and 2024 and won the Edward R. Murrow Award for Network TV Newscast in the same years.[2][3]
Muir has become one of the most visible journalists in America.[4]World News Tonightwith David Muir has been the most watched newscast in the United States since 2015.[5]
Since joining ABC News in 2003, Muir has reported from international hotspots all over the world, with dispatches from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine, Tahrir Square, Mogadishu, Gaza, Guantanamo, Fukushima, Beirut, Amman, and the Syrian border, among other locations.[6]
Muir was born into a Catholic family[9] in Syracuse, New York,[10] and grew up on Onondaga Hill. Muir has one older sibling, two younger stepsiblings, six nieces, and three nephews. As a child, he watched ABC News' flagship program each night with his family and credits longtime anchor Peter Jennings as his biggest journalistic influence. He graduated from Onondaga Central Junior-Senior High School in May 1991. He attended Ithaca College, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in May 1995.[11] During high school, he interned at WTVH-TV in Syracuse.[12] While in college he was inspired by a professor who told him he had "the cut of a TV newsman". He spent a semester at the Institute on Political Journalism at the Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University and another semester abroad at the University of Salamanca in Spain with the Institute for the International Education of Students.[11][13]
Career
WTVH television
From 1994 to 2000, Muir worked as an anchor and a reporter at WTVH-TV in Syracuse, New York.[12] Muir's reports from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Israel, and the Gaza Strip following the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin earned him top honors from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. The Associated Press honored Muir for Best Enterprise Reporting and Best Television Interview. The Syracuse Press Club recognized Muir as the anchor of the "Best Local Newscast", and he was voted one of the "Best Local News Anchors" in Syracuse.
WCVB television
From 2000 to 2003, Muir was an anchor and a reporter for WCVB television in Boston, where he won the regional Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting and the National Headliner Award and Associated Press honors for his work tracing the path of the hijackers involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks.[14] The Associated Press also recognized his news-anchoring and reporting.[15]
ABC News
Muir interviewing President Donald Trump in 2020Muir interviewing President Joe Biden in 2021
In August 2003, Muir joined ABC News as anchor of the overnight news program World News Now. He also became the anchor of ABC News' early morning newscast World News This Morning (America This Morning). In 2006, and occasionally after that, he co-anchored the newsmagazine Primetime. In June 2007, Muir was the anchor of World News Saturday. In February 2012, Muir became an anchor for both weekend newscasts, and the broadcast was named World News with David Muir. Muir has been silently credited with a rise in the ratings of the weekend evening broadcasts.[16] In March 2013, Muir was promoted to co-anchor ABC's 20/20 with Elizabeth Vargas.
Early anchoring and reporting
In September 2005, Muir was inside the New Orleans Superdome as Hurricane Katrina hit and stayed in New Orleans to report on the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Muir's reports revealed and highlighted the deteriorating conditions inside the Convention Center and Charity Hospital as Muir waded through chest-deep water to find patients trapped inside the hospital.[17]
Muir reported from the Israeli-Lebanon border in October 2006 on the Israeli war with Hezbollah. Muir was in Gaza in March 2007 to cover the Hamas coup, reporting from inside the Gaza Strip.[11] In October 2007, Muir was dispatched to Peru after the worst earthquake to hit that country in more than two decades.
In September 2008, Muir reported from Ukraine, more than two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear accident. In April 2009, David Muir and Diane Sawyer reported a 20/20 hour about guns in America getting "disturbing results" as described by the New York Daily News.[18]
In May 2009, Muir's reporting on 20/20 revealed a significant increase in the number of homeless children in America. Muir made multiple trips to the Gulf of Mexico to investigate the BP oil spill.
In January 2010, Muir traveled to Haiti in the wake of the devastating earthquake, which orphaned tens of thousands of children and destroyed the country's buildings and basic services. More than 220,000 people died, and many others were injured in the 7.0-magnitude quake.[19] He has returned to Haiti multiple times since the earthquake hit, uncovering attacks on women and the unfolding mental health crisis in Port au Prince.[20]
In November 2012, Muir served as one of ABC's lead correspondents for the 2012 U.S. presidential election.[22] Muir's interviews with Republican candidate Mitt Romney generated national headlines on the issues of economics and immigration policy in the United States.[23][24]
In January 2013, Muir reported from inside Iran, leading up to the nuclear talks.[25] Muir was the first Western journalist to report from Mogadishu, Somalia on the famine.[26] Muir and his team came under fire while reporting from Mogadishu. In 2013, he received the Edward R. Murrow Award for his reporting.
World News Tonight with David Muir
On June 27, 2014, ABC News announced that Muir would succeed Diane Sawyer as the anchor and managing editor of ABC World News. Muir made his debut broadcast on September 1, 2014.
In April 2015, World News Tonight with David Muir became the country's most-watched evening newscast, outpacing NBC Nightly News for the first time since September 7, 2009.[27]
Muir's Emmy-nominated Made in America series on the American economy is a continuing feature on his broadcast.[28][29] Muir has brought the series to other television programs, including ABC's The View, where he has served as guest co-host.[30][31]
In March 2016, Muir released a year-long report on the heroin crisis in America winning a CINE Golden Eagle Award for his reporting.[32]
Muir has moderated multiple Democratic and Republican Presidential Primary debates[33] and interviewed numerous presidential candidates.
Muir interviewed then President Donald Trump on January 25, 2017, in the White House. It was Trump's first interview as president, five days after inauguration.[34]
In 2020, Muir's ratings exploded during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic along with the other Evening News programs.[35][36] Averaging around 12 million viewers, and becoming the most watched TV Program.[35] On May 6, 2020, Muir interviewed President Donald Trump about the COVID Pandemic.[37]
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Muir conducted the first joint interview with Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, then-Senator Kamala Harris.[38] He has interviewed President Biden multiple times. At the White House in December 2021, Muir pressed Biden on whether the U.S. was prepared for the Covid surge.[39] In February 2023, Muir conducted two interviews with President Biden, one in Warsaw on U.S. support for Ukraine. Muir also interviewed Biden in Normandy during the 80th anniversary of D-Day.[40]
Muir was the first network anchor to interview Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Muir later interviewed Zelenskyy in Kyiv as Ukraine began its counteroffensive against Russia.[41]
In 2021, Muir became the lead anchor of breaking news and special event coverage for ABC News, a role previously held by GMA anchor George Stephanopoulos from 2014 to 2020.[42]
In 2021 he traveled to Southern Madagascar to report on what the United Nations World Food Program warned was the first climate-change driven famine in the world.[43] After the report aired, ABC News viewers donated over $3 million to the World Food Program.[44] The report earned Muir a prestigious George Polk Award for environmental reporting, as well as two News & Documentary Emmy Awards.[7]
In 2023, he traveled to South Sudan to report on the historic flooding that had destroyed communities, leading to severe malnutrition as war broke out to the north, in Sudan. Muir's report South Sudan: Isolated by Water and War earned a News & Documentary Emmy, and anchored ABC News’ climate coverage recognized with a Alfred I. duPont-Columbia award.[45][46]
Muir delivered the commencement address at Ithaca College in New York in May 2011; he urged graduates to use their voices.[53] On March 13, 2015, the college awarded Muir, an alumnus, an honorary Doctor of Letters degree and the Jessica Savitch Award of Distinction for Excellence in Journalism.[54]
In 2012, Muir was awarded an Edward R. Murrow for Hard News Reporting for A Cry For Help: Famine in Somalia.[28]
In 2013, TV Week called Muir one of the "12 to Watch in TV News".[55] He was listed as one of People's Sexiest Men Alive in 2014.[56]
On May 8, 2015, Muir delivered the commencement address at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. During the ceremony, he was given an honorary Doctor of Media degree.[57]
In 2017, Muir's reporting for 20/20 "Heroin: Breaking Point in America" on the heroin epidemic won a CINE Golden Eagle Award in the News Program/Continuing Coverage category.[58]
Muir moderated a town hall with President Barack Obama on race and policing after a series of police-involved shootings in the summer of 2016, winning a News & Documentary Emmy.[59][60]
Muir's live reporting from Panama City Beach, Florida later that year, as Hurricane Michael hit the panhandle as a category 5 storm won a News & Documentary Emmy for breaking news.[63]
In 2020, Muir traveled to the Auschwitz concentration camp with a group of survivors who had been imprisoned at the camp as children. That report earned him a News & Documentary Emmy a year later.[65]
On January 25, 2024, Muir and ABC News were recognized with a Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Baton Award for Environmental Reporting. Later that same year, his climate reporting from South Sudan earned him a News & Documentary Emmy.[70]
Muir has received multiple News and Documentary Emmy Awards and Edward R. Murrow Awards for his reports. On September 27, 2023, Muir was awarded a News & Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Live News Program and an RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award for TV Network Newscast. In 2024, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir received both awards for the second year in a row.[71]
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