It was his first day at Boston’s WCVB-TV and reporter David Muir was wrapping up his live shot during the station’s 6 p.m. newscast.
“Chet and Nat,” Muir said, “back to you.”
Natalie Jacobson and the late Chet Curtis were “Boston royalty,” as Muir put it yesterday, and the young reporter thought ?he may have been a little “pre-?sumptuous” with the revered Channel 5 anchor duo.
So when he returned to the newsroom, he asked Jacobson if it was too soon for him to address them as “Chet and Nat.”
“She said, ‘Absolutely not, you ?are part of this team,’” Muir ?recalled during a call from his Big Apple office. “I’ll never forget how she embraced me.”
And Jacobson was among the first to reach out and congratulate Muir when news broke that he’d be replacing Diane Sawyer as anchor of ABC’s “World News.”
Muir said the Boston community has been “incredible to me.”
Sawyer signed off last night. Afterwards, Muir planned to host a rooftop party for Sawyer and toast their “captain.” Muir, 40, ?officially takes over Tuesday.
“This is incredibly humbling,” Muir said of succeeding the news icon. “I tell people she’s not just my dear friend, she’s a force.”
As a boy growing up in Syracuse, N.Y., Muir said he “dreamed of seeing the world one day” and would “excuse himself” from playing with the other kids so he could watch legendary ABC broadcaster Peter Jennings — with whom he’d later work — ?deliver the news.
At age 13 he began interning at a local station, WTVH-TV, which kept a growth chart on the wall to track how much taller Muir grew each summer. The station eventually hired him as a reporter and anchor.
But Muir dreamed of working with Chet and Nat. He sent his work to WCVB, thinking it was ?a “long shot.”
Channel 5 hired Muir in 2000. “Anybody who knows David thought he was destined for success,” said WCVB President and general manager Bill Fine.
ABC News plucked Muir from Channel 5 three years later.
During those Channel 5 days, Jacobson told Muir, “You’ve got it,” he recalled.
“I never knew quite what she meant other than it was huge coming from Natalie Jacobson,” he said.
Muir has “got it” indeed.
