NYT doesn't show up for Bradley Manning trial in Kansas until day nine; gets ripped by own columnist

Pubic Editor Margaret Sullivan is perplexed:

...it goes to the heart of contentious media issues in which The New York Times has played an important role, publishing much information revealed through Private Manning’s act.
     Why did readers of The Times have to turn to Ed Pilkington of The Guardian, or to one of the great number of other news organizations that sent reporters, to hear Private Manning tell of the Mordor into which he had been drawn — where he had to stand naked, in chains, in the “maximum custody” brig at Quantico, Va., imploring his prison guards for something as simple as toilet paper, or, earlier, in a “cage” in Kuwait?
     The newspaper’s absence was noticed, and criticized, by many media watchers. Beyond the story itself, The Times, which considers itself the paper of record, had an obligation to be there — to bear witness — because, in a very real sense, Private Manning was one of its most important sources of the past decade.
     “The New York Times got amazing, fantastic, unparalleled material for news stories from Bradley Manning,” Mr. Ellsberg told The New Republic’s Eliza Gray.