David Muir is a multi-award winning journalist, best known as the anchor for ABC World New Tonight, and for co-hosting 20/20. The globe-trotting news anchor has been known to interview guests and report in Spanish when the situation calls for it, which leads many people to wonder if David Muir is Hispanic.
David Muir is not Hispanic. Muir’s ethnic background includes Scottish, Irish, German, English, and Italian, and the news anchor hails from upstate New York, where his family has resided for generations.
Read more below about David Muir’s life and career and why he learned to speak Spanish.
Childhood Dreams
David Muir knew he wanted to be a journalist from the time he was a child, holding in high esteem newscasters such as the legendary Peter Jennings, and Ron Curtis, a local newscaster in Muir’s hometown of Syracuse. He was so inspired, he wrote a letter to Curtis when he was 12-years old, with the local anchor responding, “Competition in television news is keen. There’s always room for the right person. It could be you.”
By the time he was a teenager, David Muir was interning at his local new station and had solidified his decision to pursue a career in journalism. Muir attended Ithaca College, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1995.
Spanish Semester
However, it was during his time in college that Muir took his high school Spanish skills and learned to fluently speak the language. In 1994, Muir studied abroad in Spain at the University of Salamanca and fell in love with the country and the language.
When discussing his decision to study in Spain, Muir said, “I remember well my days as a young, aspiring journalist and the dream of one day reporting on events unfolding all over the world. At the time, studying abroad was a chance to take a break from my academic discipline and flex a different kind of muscle learning a language and exploring a tiny corner of the world I had never imagined I would temporarily call home. For a budding reporter, it was a sort of practice run for assignments that would one day take me all over the world. The University of Salamanca always held a special allure given its age and beauty. I had been studying Spanish since high school and this was my chance to immerse myself in a language and a land far away from Upstate New York.”
You can see David Muir speaking Spanish during a live broadcast in Cuba in the YouTube video below.
