Few figures in the aftermath of the Lindsay Clancy trial have drawn as much scrutiny as Sue O’Connell, the NBC Boston commentator who covered the case from jury selection onward. In a September 24 column for American Thinker, J.R. Dunn argues that O’Connell’s coverage and post-verdict conduct helped unleash a wave of harassment against Michael P. Desronvil, the holdout juror who prevented a verdict in the case — and that her subsequent complaints about being targeted herself ring hollow.
The piece is an opinion column, and it reads like one: sharp, sarcastic, and openly unsympathetic to O’Connell. But it also lays out a sequence of events worth examining on their own terms, particularly for anyone tracking how the Clancy trial’s aftermath spilled from the courtroom into the broader media ecosystem.
From trial coverage to open activism
According to Dunn, O’Connell’s reporting during the trial was, by his own admission, “fair enough” — he specifically notes that she defended Patrick Clancy from conspiracy-minded critics during the proceedings. That assessment shifts sharply once the verdict came down.
Dunn writes that O’Connell accused Desronvil of having a “history of domestic violence accusations,” a claim she said was backed by “court documents and interviews with family members.” Dunn frames this as a leap beyond what the evidence supported, quipping that commentators apparently don’t have to dig as deeply as reporters do.
He also highlights what he describes as O’Connell’s pivot into outright advocacy, quoting a social media post in which she addressed people angry about the Clancy outcome: “If you’re mad about the Clancy outcome and live in MA, get off social media and start lobbying your lawmakers for change.” For Dunn, that crosses a line — whether the person posting it calls herself a reporter or a commentator.
Perhaps most consequential, in Dunn’s telling, was O’Connell’s public solicitation of jurors. He quotes a post that appeared on X and TikTok: “Did you serve as a juror on the Lindsay Clancy Trial? I appreciate your sacrifice, hard work, and service.”
The juror interview that followed
Dunn connects that outreach directly to what came next: an interview with three jurors who, in his characterization, misrepresented Desronvil’s engagement with the case and his behavior during jury deliberations. That interview, he writes, triggered angry responses across social media.
He also flags a specific clip — one in which, according to Dunn, a juror appears to have been prompted to change an answer. He notes O’Connell repeating the question “Should there be a new trial?” in the same tone of voice, with the juror in a gray pixie cut then answering in direct contradiction of what she had said previously. Dunn asks how often that pattern occurred, but does not offer further documentation in the column.
The through-line of his argument is that O’Connell should not be surprised by what followed. “It should come as no surprise, to O’Connell above all, that she’s been targeted much the same as Michael Desronvil,” he writes.
The response video, and the credibility problem
Dunn spends considerable space on O’Connell’s response video, describing two elements he considers self-inflicted wounds.
The first is the staging. He describes O’Connell sitting on a bench in a t-shirt with a vest over it, presenting the setting as a manufactured moment of casual accessibility — a commentator taking a break to address “the little people.” Dunn calls the format tired, noting it has been a staple of media presentation since the late 1960s and arguing that audiences recognize it as artificial.
The second grievance is what he calls hypocrisy. His core objection: that O’Connell bears real responsibility for directing a large volume of online anger at Desronvil based on, in his view, substandard reporting, and now wants sympathy over a handful of hostile messages. He notes pointedly that none of those messages are actually quoted in her response.
“There is such a thing as ‘karma,'” Dunn writes, “and that is what you are experiencing right now.” He adds that he does not condone death threats, but doubts O’Connell is experiencing even a fraction of what Desronvil faced.
The legal question left open
Dunn closes his argument by suggesting the story may not be finished. He writes that it “seems clear from the record” that Desronvil has grounds for legal action, and expresses doubt that either O’Connell or NBC Boston can shelter behind the Sullivan standard — the actual-malice bar established by New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that makes defamation suits by public figures difficult, though not impossible, to win.
Whether such a suit materializes is, at this point, speculation on Dunn’s part rather than a reported development. He offers no filing, no statement from Desronvil’s attorneys, and no comment from NBC Boston or O’Connell. His closing line — that O’Connell “may yet look back on these as the halcyon days when all she had to worry about were a handful of internet loons rather than summonses and subpoenas” — is a prediction, not a report.
What the column is really arguing
Strip away the tone and the piece makes a familiar media-criticism argument: that the distinction between reporter and commentator has become a convenient shield, invoked when accountability is demanded but set aside when advocacy is useful. Dunn’s insistence on O’Connell’s self-designation — “a COMMENTATOR, not a reporter,” as she has put it on X — is the pivot on which much of his critique turns.
It’s worth being clear about what the column does and does not establish. Dunn’s characterization of the juror interview, the supposed answer-changing clip, and Desronvil’s “domestic violence accusations” claim are presented as his reading of the record; the column does not reproduce the underlying court documents or the full interview transcript. The American Thinker piece is a polemic, and it should be read as one.
What it captures accurately is the shape of the controversy: a high-profile trial, a holdout juror who became a target, a local commentator who helped amplify that targeting, and a media figure now experiencing a version of the same treatment she helped direct at someone else. That symmetry is the engine of Dunn’s argument, and it’s why the column lands with the force it does regardless of where readers come down on the underlying case.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/why-sue-o-connell-feels-so-bad/