BOSTON — Here’s the funny thing about Sue O’Connell’s long, emotional tirade about Mass Daily News: she never actually disputes a single fact we reported.

Not one.

A sitting city councilor was caught on video inside a polling place — a potential violation of election rules — during a moment when the city’s entire Election Department is under state receivership. That’s news by any definition.

Sue’s response?

A full meltdown about our LLC paperwork.

She doesn’t challenge the footage. She doesn’t explain the conduct. She doesn’t address the legal questions. She doesn’t defend the councilor. She doesn’t correct anything we published.

She simply attacks our existence.

That tells you everything you need to know about where the media landscape is heading — and who is losing power in it.

For decades, the institutional press controlled not just the reporting, but the entire distribution system. If you wanted the city to hear something, you needed the Globe, GBH, or a handful of traditional outlets. They could decide what was news, what wasn’t, and whose voices mattered.

Those days are gone.

Platforms matter. Distribution matters. Social reach matters. The ability to break a story, post a video, and hit hundreds of thousands of people in hours matters.

And that shift terrifies people who built their careers in an era where gatekeeping was job security.

Sue’s rant wasn’t about transparency. It wasn’t about accountability. It wasn’t even about journalism.

It was about power slipping.

Because the truth is simple: legacy media figures can no longer decide who gets to participate in the news ecosystem. They can no longer silence stories by ignoring them. They can’t declare themselves the only adults in the room while dismissing anyone outside their shrinking circle.

So they lash out at the newcomers. Not by disproving them. Not by correcting them. But by insisting they shouldn’t exist.

It’s spiraling disguised as expertise.

While she fumes about anonymous LLCs and mastheads, the actual story — a city councilor’s conduct inside a polling location — remains untouched, unchallenged, and unrefuted.

And our audience noticed.

Mass Daily News is growing because we focus on what happened. Others focus on who has the right to say it.

That’s the divide in modern journalism.

One side reports. The other side gatekeeps.

We’ll stick with reporting.