Syracuse native David Muir has been named one of the most 100 influential people in the world.
The “ABC World News Tonight with David Muir” anchor, who also co-anchors ABC’s “20/20,” made the 2025 edition of the Time 100 list on Wednesday. Former ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer praised Muir for his coverage of a wide range of topics, including hurricanes, wildfires, Iraq’s hunt for ISIS, and starving children in Madagascar and South Sudan.
“Every night more than 8 million Americans trust him to make sense of the day,” Sawyer wrote Wednesday in Time magazine. “Like Peter Jennings before him, David is authoritative and dynamic—the first out the door to the story.”
Muir has anchored “World News Tonight” since Sawyer retired in 2014, leading the ABC program to become the most-watched evening newscast for seven years in a row and No. 1 in all key target demographics. He graduated from Onondaga Central High School and Ithaca College, and owns a home in Skaneateles.
Muir, 51, got his start in broadcasting when he wrote to CNY Central’s WTVH at age 13 and eventually got an internship.
“They had a growth chart on the newsroom wall where each summer and school break I came in, they’d mark me up on the wall and measure how much I’d grown and they would often joke about how many octaves my voice had dropped,” Muir told syracuse.com | The Post-Standard in 2016.
Sawyer said Muir was destined for success.
“I think I know what destiny looks like because I’ve seen a photo of a serious 13-year-old boy, talking his way into an internship at the local TV station,” Sawyer wrote. “Now he’s the anchor chosen for interviews by Popes and Presidents. He shows up calm, respectful, and fearless. I am lucky that my successor is also the irreverent friend I want to hang out with when the camera shuts down.”
David Muir at WTVH-TV in Syracuse in 1986.
Time magazine annually names the 100 most influential people in the world, including celebrities, innovators, leaders and icons. Other big names on this year’s list include President Donald Trump, WNBA star Breanna Stewart, podcaster Joe Rogan, actor Adrien Brody, singer Ed Sheeran, SUNY-ESF professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, Syracuse University alumna Megyn Kelly, and billionaire Elon Musk.
Time noted Muir’s reporting from Ukraine, Afghanistan and other countries; stories about climate change and efforts to raise $9 million for the World Food Programme; interviews with Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden; and his work co-moderating the only debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, seen by more than 70 million viewers.
“I’m no different from the intern in Syracuse who then became the rookie reporter in Syracuse,” Muir told syracuse.com in 2016. “I think the sensibilities of having grown up in Upstate New York and the concerns, the fears, the hopes of the people there are reflected all over the country. And that still drives me to this day.”
‘You kept going’: David Muir praises 6,000 new Syracuse University graduates (photos)
