Richard N. Weltz at the American Thinker wonders how the New York Times got this scoop on the Lynndie England jury:

But jurors seemed more interested in whether commanders at the prison had ordered the abuse or issued rules barring such treatment. In questions passed to the judge, they asked repeatedly about the direction that superiors at the prison provided to guards.

How did the Times get access to confidential communications between the jury and the judge? Did the reporter talk to a couple of jurors, who then became “jurors” in the story? Or was this a metaphorical jury and judge, symbolic of something else? Weltz reports that no other news organization has this aspect of the story:

Did the New York Times have exclusive access to information unavailable to the world’s major news services? Or is this still another case (see today’s begrudgingly weak apologies for deliberate misreporting of an incident involving Geraldo Rivera and a knowingly inaccurate report implying wrongful political influence by several contractors helping to repair the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina) of Pinch’s Propaganda Patrol manipulating the “news” to suit the paper’s political agenda?

UPDATE: This might shed some light. Colin W. writes:

In a military courtmartial, jurors are allowed to pass the judges questions to ask of the witnesses. Unless the courtroom was deliberately sealed (which should only happen for classified/sensitive testimony, if I recall), the reporters would have been there as the judge then asked the questions of the witnesses. The Times’ failing here is a lack of clarity (oh, and somehow I doubt they bothered to tally up EVERY question asked, but that’s just me). The information was available to anyone who was at the courtmartial.

UPDATE II: A retired military judge writes to explain that any journalist could have heard the jurors’ questions to the judge:

There may or may not have been “figurative jurors,” but there almost certainly was no special access and no scoop. The questions asked of witnesses by court-martial members (military law doesn’t use the term “jurors”) are not confidential.
Military Rule of Evidence 614(b) provides:
“Members shall submit their questions to the military judge in writing so that a ruling may be made on the propriety of the questions or the course of questioning and so that questions may be asked on behalf of the court by the military judge in a form acceptable to the military judge.”
Questions by court members may get into matters that are inadmissible, so they are put in writing and screened by the judge before being asked in open court. The customary procedure is that the written question is shown to the lawyers for both sides, who have the opportunity to object. Simple objections can be noted on the question paper itself. In more complex situations counsel may request an out of court session to discuss their objection without the members hearing. In that case the members withdraw from the courtroom but (except in the extraordinarily rare case of a proceeding that is closed to the public for other reasons) spectators can remain.
So, among the ways that a journalist could learn what is in a question from a court member are:
1) The simplest and most common case: the question is unobjectionable and the judge asks it in open court;
2) An out of court session is required. The members leave, the spectators remain, and the journalist listens to the judge and lawyers discussing the question; or
3) The question is objectionable and is not asked, but during a recess one of the lawyers who examined it tells the journalist what it said. This is probably pretty rare, but unless the judge issued a gag order, the lawyers would be free to do it.
What probably happened is that every spectator in the courtroom had the same access to the members’ questions. The Times reporter, realizing that the small tidbit furthered the paper’s long-term project of blaming Abu Ghraib on senior officials, included it in the story. If no one else did, the appearance of a scoop was created.