- Big ideas are being born inside this small but mighty medium.

This is the newsroom of Boyle Heights.

Beat a student run news outlet in East Los Angeles where budding journalists are pitching and discussing hyper-local stories they want to cover.

Destiny is a senior at Mendez High School on LA's East side.

She's back at Boyle Heights beat for her second year.

Learning about journalism as well as trading teenage doubt for a microphone and a mission.

- I'm able to gain new skills, like skills that I'm gonna need for the future.

Like for example, like I talked to a lot of new people with like the people that I've interviewed and like, I feel like before I was like a really shy person and like I didn't really like communicate with like people that were like outside of my comfort zone.

But with like Boyle Heights Beat I learned to like make new connections and like actually speak to new people without being afraid.

So that's why I feel like it's really gonna help you for like my future career.

- You can see it in your glasses.

A smile.

- Today's journalism lesson is in the field and how to use these reflectors to bounce sunlight onto their subject.

To be videoed and photographed, there are 30 students enrolled in this afterschool production.

They are recruited from schools throughout Los Angeles Unified School district.

Together these students work hand in hand with professional journalists.

This is full immersion in print and digital media, photography and podcasting.

David is a senior at Mendez High telling stories, he says, no one else might tell.

- Being part of Boyle Heights Beat, I've learned so many stories.

I remember during one of my times I had done a photo essay on a food vendor near my school.

But once I started talking to him, I found out his story, how he had been there before the school even got built.

How he saw all that create what happened before it.

And then he also told me a story how he suffered.

He went through like a, an attack.

And I feel like sometimes those stories aren't heard.

All you have to do is ask and you'll know.

And like a organization like this helps that it helps go like, kids like me go out and learn more.

And that's something that I really appreciate about it.

- Bienvenidos to the latest Radio Pulso, the Boyle Heights Beat podcast.

My name is Valentina Guevara - Content creation continues in the podcast studio where student journalists produce Radio Pulso, covering topics from controversial construction projects to spotlighting local comedians.

It's news by and for the community.

- We build you up for the real world because you're in the real world.

- Carmen Gonzalez is the student journalism manager of the beat.

She's seen a lot of changes even making news.

In 2024, Boyle Heights Beat was integrated into the LA Local News initiative and served as a national model to launch similar publications.

Created in 2010, the Beats newsroom and student journalism programs are funded through foundations and individual support, allowing more than 300 students to come through this program, including Carmen herself in 2017.

Her story at the Beat runs deep.

- What is happening here, what we're creating here is, you know, a lot of these students are first generation students who are going off to college, you know, in a, in, in a year or so, once they joined the program.

And I remember entering even at community college and being so ahead for my peers and just basic etiquette.

They don't teach you that in high school.

- The beat is bilingual and when students get their work published, they get paid.

But for David, this experience is much more than money combined.

- It's really helped me like just express myself a lot.

I found it to be like a form of therapy apart from just writing and like giving out the news.

It it's helped me find a sense of therapy for myself just to find, be able to find peace and also share with other is, I feel like photography is something that it, it not only belongs to one, but many people can see it and also interpret it their own ways.

And I feel like what we learn here, it's not just based in the classroom, it could be used anywhere.