Youth Voices Rising: Keneisha Bratcher Explores West Virginia Through the Agriculture Beat

Keneisha Bratcher is a recent graduate of Capital High School who attended the Norman Jordan Academy this summer. She came to the workshop ready to learn more about storytelling and interviewing, and left with two new skills: creating videos and talking to people during an interview.

During Youth Voices Rising, Keneisha was assigned to the agriculture category and interviewed Heaven Smith, Miss Black West Virginia, and Chamear Davis, Black By God’s Agriculture Fellow, about what gives them hope for West Virginia.

Keneisha Bratcher came to Black By God’s Youth Voices Rising workshop ready to learn more about storytelling and interviewing.

Bratcher, 18, had recently graduated from Capital High School. When asked what she learned during the workshop, she pointed to two new skills: creating videos and learning how to talk to people during an interview.

She soon had the chance to put those skills into practice.

Bratcher was assigned to the agriculture beat, where she practiced gathering soundbites by asking workshop participants questions about West Virginia, its land and what gives them hope about the state.

One of those conversations was with Heaven Smith.

When Bratcher asked Smith what gives her hope when she thinks about West Virginia, Smith looked to the natural world around her.

“When I think about West Virginia, what gives me hope is, honestly, just the nature and outside,” Smith said, talking about the trees and spending time outdoors.

Bratcher also collected a soundbite from Chamear, whose response explored another side of West Virginia’s relationship with its land and resources.

“West Virginia is a place that has historically been extracted from on so many levels,” Chamear said.

But Chamear’s answer was also about the people who have continued to call the state home despite those challenges.

West Virginians, Chamear said, have a way of picking themselves up and carrying on.

Together, the soundbites gave Bratcher an opportunity to practice one of the most important parts of reporting: asking a question and listening closely to where the answer leads.

Her agriculture assignment also showed that reporting about agriculture can extend beyond farms and food. Questions about West Virginia’s land can open conversations about natural resources, the environment, community and the people whose lives are connected to all of them.

For Bratcher, the exercise took what she was learning inside the Youth Voices Rising workshop and put it into practice. She approached people, asked questions and captured their responses on camera.

Through Youth Voices Rising, Bratcher got the chance to experience the reporting process for herself — one question, one conversation and one soundbite at a time.