Kris Kelley wanted to go to law school. Instead, she’s fixing the local news crisis.

The adjunct journalism professor spent her undergraduate years at UC Berkeley majoring in English with what she thought was a passion for law, but a case of burnout pushed her in another direction. She tried marketing and advertising, but a move to Spain rerouted her yet again — this time, to assist NBC with coverage of the Barcelona Olympics.

“It was a lot of fun,” Kelley said. “I was basically hired for that summer because I lived in Barcelona and I could speak Spanish, and I could get people around, and they were hiring a lot of PA jobs … and I ended up associate producing.”

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With the itch to pursue a career in news, Kelley applied to graduate school and attended USC for her master’s in broadcast journalism. She did internships with FOX Sports and CNN and stayed in Los Angeles postgrad to work for local news stations in the area.

In 2010, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism Director Michelle Levander and former La Opinión Executive Editor Pedro Rojas founded the Boyle Heights Beat. The Beat would be used to teach young, aspiring journalists how to report, and also generate coverage of an underrepresented community. The program received its funding from USC and the California Endowment.

USC asked Kelley to consult for the Beat in its early stages for what was supposed to be a one-month gig. But one month turned into two, two turned into five, and five turned into her now 14 years with the Beat. She now leads the Beat’s community youth journalism project, in which she duplicates her teaching role at USC to mentor young journalists.

“Boyle Heights in general is an immigrant community,” Kelley said. “Ninety-seven percent Latino. It is a community that often just makes it to major media when there’s a gang shooting or something … These are just voices of people that tend to not be covered or elevated.”

During this time, Kelley mentored high schoolers such as Kevin Martinez and taught them how to be reporters. Martinez, who has since returned to the Beat to be its community engagement director, said Kelley helped him become a better researcher, writer and interviewer.

“Kris was one of the mentors that really helped me develop my writing skills, develop my confidence in interviewing strangers and overall feeling more comfortable in asking questions that oftentimes are scary to ask,” Martinez said.

Five years ago, after USC had hired Kelley to work with the Beat full time and teach at Annenberg, Levander left the program amid other commitments and pressure to bring in more funding. Rather than let the paper go under — and take her job with it — Kelley stepped up to become the executive director and moved the program out from USC.

Now, the Beat is well-known — enough that it caught the attention of the new LA Local News Initiative, a nonprofit collaboration between journalists, philanthropists and organizations with the goal of strengthening local news in the area. To research, members surveyed and spoke with around 900 people across the city to determine what they need from local news.

“[The] Boyle Heights Beat actually came up in surveys more than once, so while it’s very hyperlocal, we have been around long enough that I think there was a reputation that it’s community service,” Kelley said. “We’re providing these for a community that otherwise maybe wouldn’t get that news. They came to me to learn about how to do local news in a crazy city like Los Angeles.”

After speaking with Kelley and the Beat, the initiative’s founders asked to use the paper as a model and bring the senior staff in as program leaders. With this, Kelley earned a new title: Managing Director. Her colleagues at USC feel she has more than earned it.

“[Kelley has] put in the work, put in the time, really worked at setting up a system, working with students,” said Rebecca Haggerty, associate director of Annenberg’s undergraduate journalism program. “She has a lot of patience, which you need, but also a level of initiative and entrepreneurship and drive.”

Kelley said she is thrilled the Beat can be used as a model for the initiative both because it brings a voice to the community and because the funding gained as a result has allowed her to be more strategic about the paper’s coverage.

“I was literally wearing a lot of hats, as far as raising all the money, heading all the editorial — I had a lot of jobs,” Kelley said. “Instead of focusing on survival, we can actually create strategic plans of how to reach even more people and how to grow our audience and how to do a better job of serving the community.”

Even so, Martinez said Kelley is always happy to do any work she can for the Beat. He said she continues to help him with smaller tasks when needed and still acts as a mentor to him and others.

“She’s always willing to roll her sleeves and just dive into the weeds of this work,” Martinez said. “She has this deep passion for journalism, but more specifically to train high school students to be reporters, and so she’s willing to do whatever she can to make sure that students get that support.”