I realize the New York Times is an overused target; as I noted the other day, the paper does a lot of things well, and it’s just easy couch-potato action to sit on the sidelines and attack it for minor oversights.

But each day brings a new weirdness when it comes to the Times and R. Kelly.  As I have detailed here and here, the paper has invested an enormous amount of news space telling us how talented and funky and freaky R. Kelly is over the past six years, but has been comparatively parsimonious in space devoted to letting readers in on the full slate of the trouble he’s gotten himself into over that same time period.

Since this trouble involves being accused in about a dozen credible cases of sexually molesting young girls, at least three of these on film, that parsimony itself comes across as a little …. freaky.

The latest: In the national edition today, it ran a short blurb detailing the defense’s opening statement, and the news that the judge warned jurors they would soon be watching the videotape at the center of the case. The item attributed this news to the AP, since the Times apparently isn’t paying for anyone to cover the trial.

But the AP yesterday reported that jurors were actually shown the tape, which has been previously said to show Kelly having sex with the girl, asking her to urinate, and then urinating in her mouth, though the AP didn’t explain all of that to its readers, either.

I realize this is less tasteful than just saying Kelly is really “freaky,” but that happens sometimes. Isn’t the public showing of a such a film starring a name as big as Kelly news for the paper of record?
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Previously in Hitsville:

The NYT finally notices R. Kelly isn’t a nice guy

R. Kelly and the NYT: The Freaky Defense

Tribune, Sun-Times protest closed hearings in R. Kelly case

Secret hearings in the R. Kelly case

The Godfather Who Shagged Me: The complete R. Kelly SexFacts™—Everything you ever wanted to know about the R. Kelly case

R. Kelly’s Publicist: He slept with my daughter!