Veteran broadcast journalist Diane Sawyer has penned a touching tribute to ABC Information’ David Muir, who was named within the Time100 Most Influential Individuals of the Yr checklist.
Muir was named an “Icon” for his reporting over the previous 12 months on the night information program World Information Tonight, the long-running present he took over from Sawyer in 2014. Through the years, the present has been anchored by the likes of Peter Jennings, Bob Woodruff, Elizabeth Vargas, and Charles Gibson.
“Like Peter Jennings earlier than him, David is authoritative and dynamic—the primary out the door to the story,” Sawyer wrote. “Iraq’s hunt for ISIS. Hurricanes, fires. He traveled days to carry the fingers of ravenous youngsters in Madagascar and South Sudan, resulting in hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in donations to the World Meals Programme.”
“I feel I do know what future appears like as a result of I’ve seen a photograph of a critical 13-year-old boy, speaking his manner into an internship on the native TV station. Now he’s the anchor chosen for interviews by Popes and Presidents. He exhibits up calm, respectful, and fearless,” she added.
Muir grew up in Onondaga Hill, New York, and attended Onondaga Central Junior-Senior Excessive Faculty, throughout which he interned at WTVH-TV in Syracuse. He went on to graduate magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts diploma in journalism in Might 1995 from Ithaca Faculty and in addition spent a semester at Institute on Political Journalism on the Fund for American Research at Georgetown College.
He joined ABC Information in August 2003 as anchor of World Information Now and later World Information This Morning and World Information Saturday. He’d later go on to co-anchor ABC’s 20/20 with Vargas earlier than touchdown his present spot as anchor of World Information Tonight.
“I’m fortunate that my successor can be the irreverent good friend I need to hang around with when the digicam shuts down,” Sawyer continued in her write-up for Time100. “Although I’m additionally miffed that he’s the man who can leap two flights of stairs, vault into the anchor chair, and by no means lose focus—or his breath.”
World Information Tonight presently ranks because the No. 1 most watched tv information program throughout broadcast, beating out NBC Nightly Information and CBS Night Information. Muir is commonly credited with the scores improve at ABC Information.
“Each evening greater than 8 million People belief him to make sense of the day,” Sawyer wrote.
Different honorees on this 12 months’s Time100 embrace Serena Williams, Demi Moore, Snoop Dogg, Ed Sheeran, Adrien Brody, Simone Biles, Blake Full of life, and Lorne Michaels.
World Information Tonight with David Muir, Weeknights, 6:30/5:30c, ABC Information