David Jason Muir ( 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.
Since joining ABC News in 2003, Muir has reported from 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 places. 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. In both 2023 and 2024 Muir won the Emmy for Outstanding Live News Program and the Edward R. Murrow Award for Network TV Newscast.
Muir has become one of the most visible journalists in America. World News Tonight with David Muir has been the most watched newscast in the United States since 2015. Muir's climate reporting has also been recognized with the George Polk Award, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award.
Muir was born into a Catholic family in Syracuse, New York and grew up in 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. Muir credits longtime anchor Peter Jennings as his biggest journalistic influence.
Muir 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. During high school, he interned at WTVH-TV in Syracuse. 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.
From 1994 to 2000, Muir worked as an anchor and a reporter at WTVH-TV in Syracuse, New York. 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.
From 2000 to 2003, Muir was an anchor and 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. The Associated Press also recognized his news anchoring and reporting.
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. In 2006, and occasionally after that, he co-anchored the newsmagazine Primetime. In June 2007, Muir became the anchor of World News Saturday. In February 2011, 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. In March 2013, Muir was promoted to co-anchor ABC's 20/20 with Elizabeth Vargas.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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.
In June 2011, Muir reported from Tahrir Square during the political revolution in Egypt, and from Fukushima, Japan following the deadly tsunami and nuclear power plant accident. Muir wrote about his reporting from Mogadishu, Somalia, and his subsequent return, "Inside Somalia's Crippling Famine", for the Daily Beast.
In November 2012, Muir served as one of ABC's lead correspondents for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Muir's interviews with Republican candidate Mitt Romney generated national headlines on the issues of economics and immigration policy in the United States.
In December 2012, Muir also anchored several hours of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as it unfolded, and then reported from the scene as President Obama visited the town. Muir also reported from the movie theater mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado; from Joplin, Missouri, in the aftermath of a destructive tornado; and from Tucson, Arizona, after the shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords that left six others dead.
In January 2013, Muir reported from inside Iran, leading up to the nuclear talks. Muir was the first Western journalist to report from Mogadishu, Somalia, on the famine. Muir and his team came under fire while reporting from Mogadishu. In 2013, he received the Edward R. Murrow Award for his reporting.