In the wake of Kevin Ward Jr.’s death in August, after he was hit by the Sprint Car of NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, motorsports found itself in unfamiliar territory.

It found itself in the spotlight, under a national microscope. It was being reported on by people who couldn’t tell you the difference between a Sprint Car and the Sprint Cup. Many of these people had less than a layman’s understanding of dirt track racing, yet they were on TV, passing themselves off as trusted experts.

On Monday morning this type of clouded reporting happened again, this time by ABC’s morning show, “Good Morning America.”

GMA did a two-minute segment on Saturday’s NASCAR race in Charlotte. Well…they did a two-minute segment on the fighting and bumping that went on after the race.

They never mentioned that Kevin Harvick won the race or that Sprint Cup favorites Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowski are on the brink from being eliminated from championship contention.

You can’t blame media outlets for selectively covering NASCAR when a brawl or a big wreck happens. People do find that stuff interesting. But GMA’s approach to covering what went on in Charlotte is painfully, face-palmingly baffling.

If you didn’t catch the segment, we ran it down here, and USA Today’s Jeff Gluck did a fantastic job of explaining it here.

In short, Keselowski got into it on the track with Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth. After more tussling in the garage, Kenseth chased down Keselowski in between two haulers and put him in a headlock. They struggled and were eventually broken up by one another’s crews.

However, the GMA story focuses on another driver. Not Hamlin. He’s not even mentioned at all in the GMA story. Not Kenseth. Not even Keselowski, who is likely the one who should be shouldering the most of the blame for the incident.

No. GMA chose to put the spotlight on Stewart.

After Keselowski rammed his car into Kenseth’s on the cool-down lap, he inadvertently ran into the back of Stewart’s car. In retaliation, Stewart put his car in reverse and smashed into the front of Keselowski’s car.

Considering everything Stewart has been through, the move was ill-advised, but of everything that happened in the closing minutes of Saturday night’s race, the move was by far the most innocuous.

Not to GMA, though. In the two-minute segment, Stewart is mentioned five times, more than any other driver.

Conveniently, the show also left out Keselowski’s response toward Stewart’s actions.

“I don’t think Tony knew what was going on,” Keselowski said after the race. “He’s probably upset and he has every right to be. His car got tore up.”

Those who watched the race and saw ABC’s fantastic coverage of what happened, saw the context of the incident. They saw the whole story.

They saw that Keselowski had gotten one too many bumps from Hamlin and was upset that Kenseth had hit him under caution earlier in the race. They saw Keselowski start bumping back, participating in what he called “car wars.”

They also saw Stewart play his walk-on role in the whole demolition derby that was the cool-down lap. They saw that Stewart backing his car into Keselowski was probably dumb, but also that it was a very small part of a much larger incident.

Unfortunately for the folks who only watched the "Good Morning America" coverage, they only got the tired, continued vilification of a driver who has become an easy target.

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