This in from Jennifer Vineyard, MTV News writer and in-depth resource on all things R. Kelly trial-related, currently embedded in Kelly’s Chicago courtroom:

R. Kelly isn’t the only one having to defend himself here: Some of the reporters covering his trial keep getting into trouble, too.

Just this week, one reporter from the Chicago Tribune had his credentials temporarily taken away because he broke a court decorum order about not conducting interviews in the courtroom. Another reporter, from local station WJMK, was reprimanded because he talked on the radio about bringing donuts for the deputies; the court thought he was mocking them and the donuts were confiscated when he brought them to the courtroom. And this morning, prior to a hearing regarding some sealed records, the judge chewed out the reporters present for — get this — allegedly leaving their gum on the court benches. “Please don’t make me do DNA on this,” Judge Vincent Gaughan said, holding up a baggy of the offending gum.

But that was kids’ stuff compared to what happened after the hearing, once Kelly and most of the reporters had cleared out. Upon receiving a call from juror #23, the judge asked for Assistant State’s Attorney Shauna Boliker and Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair to return. He informed them that juror #23 said that since reporting for jury duty, he had received three calls from the Tribune.

Judge Gaughan was concerned. Was the Tribune violating a court order not to contact jurors? St. Clair said she hadn’t made the calls and didn’t know who did, but she took the number the calls were made from and checked, as did a bailiff.

It turns out the phone number was for the paper’s market research and subscriptions office — “which seems like an innocent thing,” Boliker said. Basically, they were telemarketers.

But how were they to get the newspaper to stop calling the juror? He was already on a federal no-call list, but that hadn’t prevented the telemarketers from finding him. The judge at first asked St. Clair to get the paper to stop — after all, she works there — but without the juror’s phone number (which the court can’t disclose), she’d have no way to tell them just who to stop calling. Boliker then offered to intervene. “If you want me to call this service, or would that alert them to something?” she asked. Would it be better to take all the jurors off the lists, or would that give the newspaper precisely the information they were trying to protect?

Judge Gaughan suggested that the situation be handled by a lawyer who had been present earlier fighting for access to sealed documents, because he’d be obliged to keep the number confidential. St. Clair suggested her newspaper’s in-house counsel, and that settled it (after a few jokes about her going to jail if she violated the order).

And you thought you had a tough time getting telemarketers off your back…