Meet Branden Andersen

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Branden Andersen. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Branden with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

My mom had me and my sister when she was really young. Right away, she got to work—literally. She took on jobs to support us while also making a home from scratch. Looking back now, I can’t imagine carrying that kind of responsibility at such a young age. But she did it with grit and grace.

That work ethic never went away. In fact, it grew stronger over the years as she started business after business, always finding something that fit our lives and could give us a bit of comfort. The hustle just evolved—it never stopped.

I was usually right there with her. I’d be in the office while she balanced the books, sealing envelopes, soaking it all in without realizing it. When I was 14, she and a friend opened a little coffee stand and needed an extra pair of hands. That’s when I started learning how to make and serve coffee—but more than that, I got a taste of the freedom that comes from putting in the work and seeing the results.

By the time I was 16, I had developed an interest in journalism. My high school didn’t have a newspaper, so my mom reached out to the local paper to see if they’d take on a student intern. It turned out they were looking for a high school columnist. She’d pick me up during lunch, we’d eat together, and then she’d drop me off at the paper—where I ended up learning the foundational skills that shaped my career.

Even now, she’s still one of my biggest mentors. She’s never been the type to hover—more of a “teach from afar” kind of guide. She lets me learn by doing but is always there with insight when I ask for it.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m the founding editor of Newsberg, a hyper-local online news and events outlet based in Newberg, Oregon.

Honestly, I thought my journalism career was over back in 2015. Shortly after journalism school graduation, newspapers were folding or getting swallowed up by big media conglomerates. Advertising dollars had shifted to Google and Facebook, classifieds disappeared to Craigslist, and subscribers were leaving because news was now free online—and everywhere. It felt like the bottom had dropped out of the industry, and there was no clear path forward. I went into sales and marketing, eventually starting my own small-business marketing firm.

I moved to Newberg in 2021, and almost immediately found myself in the middle of a town in turmoil. Controversy here had made it to the national stage, and our local paper—owned then by a regional chain, now by a national conglomerate—was chasing clicks, no matter how much damage it caused to the community. But while they were focused on the headline-grabbing stories, other things were happening too. One day, I noticed my neighborhood coffee shop had quietly closed. No announcement. No story. Just gone.

A few weeks later, I saw a van parked out front, someone loading things into it. I decided to dust off my reporter instincts and get the story. I pitched it to the local paper, but they turned it down—they said it wasn’t relevant enough to the broader Portland audience. I’d already done the legwork, so I figured: why not publish it myself? I bought a domain, grabbed the Instagram handle, and Newsberg was born.

At the time, I didn’t realize what I was starting. But that one story lit the fire again. I remembered why I loved local journalism in the first place—because it matters. People started paying attention. Our audience grew week by week. And about a year later, I took the leap to go full time. These days, we’re publishing five to six stories a week, publishing a weekly email newsletter, running a full community events calendar, hosting in-person events, and working toward launching a print edition.

To me, locally owned and operated news outlets are absolutely essential. When the people reporting, editing, and publishing the news actually live in the community, they’re more accountable. We’re not parachuting in to get a quote—we’re talking to our neighbors. That makes us more responsible, more responsive, and more respectful of the people we serve.

And beyond that, local news is our first draft of history. Without it, we lose the story of what actually happened—what businesses opened or closed, what milestones the community celebrated or mourned together. Over the last decade, as local papers have disappeared, that record has shifted to social media, where posts get buried, lost, or deleted entirely. There’s no archive. No indexing. No guarantee we’ll remember.

But newspaper stories? They’re stored in libraries. They stick around. They’re there for the next generation to look back on, to understand who we were and what we went through.

That’s what we’re building with Newsberg—a living record of life in Newberg at this time, told by people who care.

I can clearly wax poetic about this subject for pages and pages, but I’ll stop here with one final request: please support your independent, local media outlets. We’re trying hard to provide this essential service to the communities we know and love.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

If you’re thinking about stepping into entrepreneurship—especially in local news—you’ve got to come in with an open mind. That’s one of the most powerful things about starting your own thing: you get to test ideas that might never see the light of day in a traditional setting. And sometimes, that experiment—maybe even the weird one you’re not sure about—is the very thing that sets your business apart and makes it work. But to get there, you have to be willing to take the risk, try something out, and treat every attempt as a learning opportunity, not a failure.

People love to say entrepreneurs need grit, and it’s true. But I’d argue that patience is just as important. You need that inner drive to keep showing up, day after day, even when nothing feels certain with the belief that given time it will work itself out. But when the momentum slows or the doubts creep in—and they will—what you really need is to breathe, be steady, and keep doing the work. That consistency is what carries you through the messier middle parts of building something meaningful. When things get tough or overwhelming, I fall back on that mantra: “Just do the work.”

And maybe the most important thing I’ve learned: don’t try to do it all alone. In my first year, I felt completely isolated—like I was the only person crazy enough to run a solo news operation. But once I started reaching out and connecting, I found this whole community of independent publishers across the country. Now we share ideas, trade feedback, and lean on each other when things get hard. That kind of support is invaluable. Because honestly, no one understands what you’re going through like someone who’s been in the trenches themselves.

You don’t have to go it alone—and you’re not supposed to.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?

Trust in media is at an all-time low, no matter who you are or where you live. And that creates a really unique challenge when you’re trying to build something new in this space—especially something rooted in community. From the start, I’ve had to be patient and thoughtful about how I introduce myself and my work to an audience that’s understandably skeptical. Especially given the aforementioned division in the community shortly before I started.

There’s a widespread assumption that media outlets are just chasing clicks by stirring up division—and honestly, I get where that comes from. To push against that narrative, I made a very intentional choice: I don’t publish political content or opinion pieces. I’ve kept my own name mostly out of the spotlight, letting the work speak for itself. And behind every story is a quiet but rigorous process—fact-checking, reviewing for bias, making sure each piece is as clean, fair, and accurate as possible.

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Branden Andersen

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