When Hitsville began compiling his celebrated “R. Kelly SexFacts™,” it was a work, not of star-besmirching, but press criticism.

It seemed a little odd that, in an age where child predators, to hear a lot of the media tell the story, lurk behind every corner, skulk near every school yard, and run like the wildebeest on the internets, so little attention was taken of a guy who, let’s face it, has pretty much been busted a half-dozen times or more molesting girls in their early teens.

Why this is so is a weird question. A big part is the institutionalized tyranny of the comely blonde co-ed in peril: Poor black girls, forgive the expression, get pissed on, figuratively and, in this case, literally.

Another part of it is that the rock press still has pretty lame standards, and the arts sections of even fairly respected dailies don’t have the sort of rigorous oversight that would include, say, reminding people that the guy their kids are going to see that night can be seen on the internet urinating into the mouth of a young girl … that police found pictures of him having sex with another girl on a digital camera at one of his homes … and that often at rock concerts stars have flunkies who go out in the crowd and invite women (or in this case, girls) to their boss’s liking back for the after-show party…. so on and so forth. .

The New York Times, for example, has not distinguished itself in its coverage of R. Kelly. Yesterday, the paper ran a dutiful short item on the fact that he goes on trial today on various counts of child pornography. The piece doesn’t mention what is said to be the most memorable part of the videotape at the center of the case: Indeed, if the Times has ever used a variant of the word “urinate” in writing about this story, Factiva can’t find it.

It’s distasteful, of course; it’s not like the news hasn’t seeped into popular culture, as Dave Chappelle’s devastating parody music video attests; and Kelly deserves the presumption of innocence. But when video evidence exists, when family members have identified both parties; and when a reasonable person might suppose (particularly when associates of Kelly’s have been quoted using the word’s “compulsion” and “sickness”) that the problem is ongoing (what do people think goes on after an R. Kelly concert?)… it might be worth simply sharing information with readers.

The Times as a rule hasn’t done that. It has found a lot of room to talk about Kelly in other contexts. Kelefa Sanneh, the paper’s recently departed pop critic, made it his specialty to downplay Kelly’s legal problems, making the argument that … he was talented and popular and had triumphed over the scandal:

Mr. Kelly, the legendarily freaky R&B star, long ago established himself as one of the greatest singer-songwriters of his generation. The sex scandal that threatened to derail his career in 2002 ended up doing the opposite: it made him more productive, more successful and, somehow—maybe because more people began paying attention to his excellent music—more respected than ever before.

Note that the particulars of the scandal wasn’t detailed—and that the implication left is that it was behind him.

Now, there is a backhanded way to intellectually justify such writing: That legal issues or indeed any personal behavior are irrelevant in assessing someone’s talent. That’s a position most people would be comfortable with in the post-Ezra Pound era.

But Sanneh’s argument—let’s call it the Freaky Defense—seems to go further; he seems to believe that when writing about pop stars, such issues are not only irrelevant, they don’t even deserve to be included in the discussion, that they don’t, in a journalistic context, exist—if, as I understand the argument, the star is appropriately “freaky.” As a matter of critical aesthetics, isn’t there something decadent about that? *

Last May, Sanneh, restating his thesis, wrote, “Five years ago a sex scandal threatened to dethrone him, but in the end it merely gave him more of what every star needs: attention and motivation.”

In both passages you can see the implication that Kelly’s problems were behind him; in neither case (or, indeed, ever) did Sanneh take the time to lay out the details of the charges, or the myriad other accusations leveled against Kelly, from other girls he engineered legal settlements with to other pieces of homemade child pornography found in Kelly’s homes.

And beyond passages like that, Sanneh’s admiration for Kelly cropped up everywhere: In a review of a Jamie Foxx show, Sanneh couldn’t help digressing into more praise for Kelly. Kelly, he told us, “excels at turning ridiculous boasts and promises (”You remind me of my jeep/I wanna ride it”) into glorious R&B songs. Of course, Mr. Kelly has two things that Mr. Foxx lacks: a gorgeous voice and a first-rate catalog of hits.”

Here again, what Sanneh chose to focus on was cheerful and admiring. Kelly also has (and Foxx presumably lacks) a collection of child pornography he’s taken himself, but Sanneh didn’t mention that.

Here’s Sanneh writing about some Kelly guest appearances on some new pop songs:

Hit-hungry singers and rappers beware: An R. Kelly guest appearance is a mixed blessing. Sure, he’s one of the all-time great R&B singer-songwriters, but the one thing he can’t do is play a small role. In ”I’m a Flirt” (Sony Urban), from the new Bow Wow album, Mr. Kelly issues a warning: ”Homie, don’t bring your girl to meet me.” As if to show why, he rides roughshod over his host; Bow Wow barely manages to squeak out a verse before Mr. Kelly takes over. And although Fat Joe assembled an impressive gang of guests for an exuberant remix of ”Make It Rain” (Terror Squad), Mr. Kelly’s verse outshines all the others (”I’m tryna keep it R&B/But these streets is a part of me,” he sings, ascending into falsetto); he gives the chorus a tuneful makeover too. If you want to survive an encounter with Mr. Kelly, maybe it’s best not to holler or shout but to whisper instead. That’s what Ciara does in ”Promise” (LaFace/Sony BMG), a slow and spacey R&B hit that recently got the R. Kelly treatment. She is often compared to Mr. Kelly’s onetime protege Aaliyah, who died in 2001, and indeed ”Promise (Remix)” sounds a bit like a reunion. As these two exchange words and verses, the breathy rising star does something truly surprising: She holds her own.

Again no mention is made of Kelly’s problems, and the Aaliyah reference is arresting; she was not just Kelly’s protege. She was a girl in her young teens press reports say Kelly carried on an affair with and finally married—at age fifteen. Her parents finally caught up with him and had the marriage annulled; Kelly tried to deny it but the marriage certificate was eventually found.

The NYT’s relentless cheerleading for Kelly hasn’t been limited to Sanneh.

When Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” video cycle was all the rage, the paper published a big chart mapping out all the “complex interpersonal relationships” of the series. The online version, which doesn’t include the chart, doesn’t mention the accusations against him.

The paper also published a lengthy appreciation of the series, mentioning the legal case only in a parenthetical aside, pairing the information, incredibly, with the reassuring news that he has won awards: “Mr. Kelly, a Grammy-winning singer who is scheduled to go on trial on child pornography charges in Chicago on Sept. 17, declined an interview request.”

And recently, Devendra Barnhart, serving recently as a celebrity song touter, talked about Kelly this way: “His album makes me feel like I’m driving a turquoise Hummer over a rainbow made of distilled euphoria.”

The paper had never told readers what Kelly’s sex tape made people feel like. Here’s what Chicago Sun-Times reporter Jim DeRogatis, who wrote the original exposés on Kelly, said how the tape made him feel:

“[T]his is not Tommy Lee and Pam Anderson. It’s not fun and games. This girl has the disembodied look of a rape victim and he’s urinating in her mouth. It’s a sickening spectacle.”

* The issue reminds me, tangentially, of a dance critic I once had. She had done a review of a local dance performance, but as we got more and more entangled in the editing process it became apparent some issue was motivating her I couldn’t get a handle on. Some hours later, it came out: It was by a troupe that featured disabled people—dancers with crutches, braces and wheelchairs—and she was trying to review the show without mentioning it.

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Previously in Hitsville:

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!