When Tyrone Class of 2007 alum Alexis Pazmiño was in high school, she had her sights set on elected office, even dreaming of being the first woman president of the United States.

While that hasn’t happened (yet!), she did make it to Washington, D.C., not to represent constituents or draft policy, but to help report the news that informs millions of viewers around the world.

Pazmiño is an editor and producer at CNN, and was one of six editors on the production team that won the 2024 News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage for its reporting on the Israel-Hamas War.

“It’s extremely surreal to see this giant piece of hardware, that’s incredibly heavy, sitting on my desk,” said Pazmiño of her Emmy Award. “I still feel like just some random girl from Tyrone, so having that sitting there is pretty unbelievable.”

In addition to the Israel-Hamas War, Pazmiño’s team has worked on many other major international stories, including coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Iran war.

One project that illustrates the pressure and precision of Pazmiño’s work was CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, conducted in the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Tapper’s interview with President Zelensky was recorded on a Friday for broadcast on Sunday’s State of the Union, leaving Pazmiño and her colleagues at CNN with roughly 36 hours to turn the raw footage into an hour-long program.

Pazmiño’s role at CNN extends across a wide range of fast-moving stories, including coverage of Virginia congressional redistricting, for which she had to tediously hand-draw the map graphics, and other fast-moving stories, where editors must balance speed, accuracy, and sensitivity.

While there is always pressure in her job, she loves that it is never boring or predictable.

“Every day is different,” she said. “One day I might be working on what’s breaking at the White House, the next day on a horrific tragedy, and the next on something lighter, like a correspondent going on a date with an AI chatbot.”

Tyler Sloan, a senior producer with CNN’s creative services team in Washington, D.C., hired Pazmiño and said she is especially valuable because of her range.

“She’s one of the most versatile people we have on the team,” Sloan said. “She not only can write and produce, but she’s got great graphics and design abilities, and she’s strong in pretty much every Adobe product.”

Sloan added that she also helps steady the room when the work gets intense.

“Alexis brings the fun and lightens the mood when things get tough,” Sloan said. “She knows how to handle hard scenarios like war zones or school shootings and still comes back the next day with a positive attitude.”

That kind of intense environment is central to how CNN’s breaking-news coverage comes together.

In high-pressure situations, photojournalists, videographers, and field reporters send live, unedited video feeds directly into CNN’s central video library.

Pazmiño and her fellow editors work with footage coming in from all over the world. They must quickly identify the strongest moments, trim clips, build graphics, and prepare segments for air, sometimes within minutes of receiving the footage.

For Pazmiño, the Emmy represents a team achievement.

“It was obviously a team win,” Pazmiño said. “The Emmy wasn’t for one single video. It was for all of our breaking news coverage, which made me feel like I was part of something bigger and important.”

Despite the recognition, Pazmiño says awards are not the driving force behind the team’s work.

“We’re just always trying to strive for the best news coverage we can,” she said. “The priority is producing coverage that really matters and can directly affect viewers’ lives.”

After graduating from Tyrone in 2007, Pazmiño attended American University in Washington, D.C., where she earned a degree in justice in 2011 and a second degree in film and video production in 2018.

Pazmiño’s mom, Ruth, who still lives in the Tyrone area, said her daughter’s career choice suits her well.

“Even when she was little, she was very analytical and just thinking about the truth,” she said. “She wants to know how it happened, when it happened, and why it happened. You couldn’t sugarcoat anything with her.”

Social studies and journalism teacher Todd Cammarata remembers Pazmiño as one of the top students in her class. In addition to teaching her in the honors civics class, she was also a standout on the mock trial team that he coached.

“Alexis always had a keen interest in current events and politics, and she is a great debater, so her career path doesn’t surprise me at all. In high school, she was opinionated but also very respectful of others. It’s really exciting to see what she is doing now. I’m super proud of her,” Cammarata said.

Ruth Pazmiño said her daughter’s personality makes her especially well-suited for journalism.

“I am so proud of her because she is real. She can identify with anybody,” Ruth said. “She is so friendly, and getting into this field is perfect for her. When you’re dealing with the news, you have to be truthful. The truth doesn’t have to be boring. The news can be exciting, the news can be fun, as long as you tell the truth.”

For Ruth, seeing her daughter win an Emmy was an especially emotional moment.

“Oh my gosh, when she won an Emmy, I was jumping for joy,” she said. “I was over the moon with excitement. I couldn’t believe it, but I could at the same time. She works hard and loves her job.”

For Alexis, the Emmy is meaningful, but so is the everyday experience of seeing something she edited reach viewers across the country and around the world.

“I’ll hit publish on an edit, and then sit back in my edit bay and watch it on my TV and think, ‘I made that,’” she said. “That was just on my desk, and now millions of people are watching it. It’s so cool.”

“Also, the Emmy is nice,” she added.

Click the image below to watch several recent segments that Pazmiño worked on: