Sep 16, 2026 · 58 min · 11 segments
In this episode, Rebecca talks with Danyelle White, Chief of Content at The Salt Lake Tribune, about the newsroom’s journey through digital transformation and what it means to practice “conscious…
Rebecca SnyderHost
And I got so excited because you talk a lot about conscious disruption, and I wanted to first unpack what that term means.
I think the phrase conscious disruption means getting ahead of things before they happen to you, frankly, right? I think when we talk about disruption a lot, it's from external forces, it's circumstances, it's trends, it's reader habits or customer habits suddenly shifting.
I think AI is the disruption du jour right now that people are trying to figure their way around.
And I think when you consciously disrupt yourself or consciously disrupt an industry, you are looking at how things are headed.
And you were looking at the trends and you were looking at the threats and you're looking at the opportunities, right? And you pick your spot and you go for it.
You play offense so that you're not kind of stuck playing defense on a back foot, right? And it's really hard to thrive and sometimes even survive when you're constantly having to play defense in that way.
And so for us at the Tribune, we've been very mindful of, you know, Our worst nightmare is to be the executives of yore that were like, oh, the Internet's a fad.
And so I think we are really conscious about, you know, paying attention to a lot of different signals.
You mentioned, you know, that I lead our community engagement efforts and it's really important to us to have an understanding of what people need.
And what they want, but sometimes what they say they want and then what they actually, you know, the behavior afterwards, sometimes there's a discrepancy, right? And so if you better understand their needs, I think you're going to be in a better place to deliver on what they need.
So I'm interested in that tension between going back to not wanting to discount technology and new trends and listening to people's needs that they're not always upfront about.
How do you stop yourself from jumping on every little bandwagon and going down the rabbit holes of people saying, oh, I need this, but really they're saying that? That feels like a lot to balance.
And I do think there's a bit of a difference there, right, as to responding to people's needs versus, you know, just reacting to whichever way the wind blows.
And I got so excited because you talk a lot about conscious disruption, and I wanted to first unpack what that term means.
I think the phrase conscious disruption means getting ahead of things before they happen to you, frankly, right? I think when we talk about disruption a lot, it's from external forces, it's circumstances, it's trends, it's reader habits or customer habits suddenly shifting.
I think AI is the disruption du jour right now that people are trying to figure their way around.
And I think when you consciously disrupt yourself or consciously disrupt an industry, you are looking at how things are headed.
And you were looking at the trends and you were looking at the threats and you're looking at the opportunities, right? And you pick your spot and you go for it.
You play offense so that you're not kind of stuck playing defense on a back foot, right? And it's really hard to thrive and sometimes even survive when you're constantly having to play defense in that way.
And so for us at the Tribune, we've been very mindful of, you know, Our worst nightmare is to be the executives of yore that were like, oh, the Internet's a fad.
And so I think we are really conscious about, you know, paying attention to a lot of different signals.
You mentioned, you know, that I lead our community engagement efforts and it's really important to us to have an understanding of what people need.
And what they want, but sometimes what they say they want and then what they actually, you know, the behavior afterwards, sometimes there's a discrepancy, right? And so if you better understand their needs, I think you're going to be in a better place to deliver on what they need.
So I'm interested in that tension between going back to not wanting to discount technology and new trends and listening to people's needs that they're not always upfront about.
How do you stop yourself from jumping on every little bandwagon and going down the rabbit holes of people saying, oh, I need this, but really they're saying that? That feels like a lot to balance.
And I do think there's a bit of a difference there, right, as to responding to people's needs versus, you know, just reacting to whichever way the wind blows.
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