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David Muir, ABC ‘World News Tonight’ anchor to narrate WCNY documentary ‘Erie: The Canal That Made America’
by
July 7, 2017
WCNY, Central New York’s flagship public broadcaster, announced today David Muir, ABC “World News Tonight” anchor, will narrate WCNY’s newest documentary “Erie: The Canal That Made America,” premiering at 8 p.m. Sept. 12 on WCNY.
“Erie: The Canal That Made America” is a one-hour documentary, marking the bicentennial of the start of construction of the Erie Canal when surveyors and excavators began linking a young United States’ east to its western frontier. It depicts how a young nation broke through with its first national public works project – America’s greatest – by succeeding in constructing a supposedly impossible-to-build, 363 mile man-made waterway to America’s heartland. Once the waters of the Great Lakes were wed with the Atlantic Ocean, the canal helped create what America now knows as the Empire State and propelled New York City into the role of America’s leading port and economic hub.
Muir is an Emmy-award winning journalist who serves as anchor and managing editor of ABC World News Tonight with David Muir and co-anchor of ABC’s 20/20. For more than a decade, Muir has reported from international hotspots including Tehran, Tahrir Square, Mogadishu, Gaza, and Fukushima. Most recently, Muir landed the first interview with President Donald Trump after his inauguration. Muir secured the exclusive sit-down with Pope Francis inside the Vatican. Muir’s Emmy-nominated series Made In America is a hallmark of the broadcast. A magna cum laude graduate of Ithaca College, Muir spent five years as an anchor and reporter at WTVH-TV in his hometown of Syracuse, NY before joining WCVB-TV in Boston, and then ABC News.
“As a boy growing up in Central New York, the Erie Canal was always part of the landscape, but few may know it began as an audacious and grand idea championed by only a few,” Muir said. It is a powerful reminder of the possibilities that can be unleashed when leaders embrace American ingenuity. This was truly an idea born and made in America that would shape our country in ways unimaginable at the time.”
“In this year that marks the bicentennial of the groundbreaking for the Erie Canal, WCNY is committed to telling the national and even international impact of the Erie, the canal that made America,” said Robert J. Daino, WCNY President and CEO. “WCNY’s documentary takes viewers across the country to discover how the canal transformed America’s immigration and opened the Midwest to settlement, created the financial capital of the world, and transported new ideas and social movements that continue to shape the nation today.”
To learn more about the documentary and to view a trailer, visit wcny.org/eriecanal. For viewing information, visit wcny.org/wheretowatch.
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