Misogyny Watch: Election Coverage

I'm annoyed, but I'm not really sure who to be annoyed with.

MSN ran a little article in their pop culture section about the fact that many presidential candidates are eager to appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. In particular, it quoted a Comedy Central executive on the matter:

"It's sort of an open invitation for candidates," said Michele Ganeless, Comedy Central's executive vice president and general manager. "Jon makes these guys feel comfortable. He provides them with an opportunity to reach an audience they don't always reach, which is young men."

Fine, except that young women watch the Daily Show too. In fact, Jon Stewart's become a bit of a sex symbol. I may not be able to back up the sex symbol part with numbers, but according to some stats cited in this study by the Pew Research Center, the Daily Show/Colbert Report audience is 46% female.

So who should I be annoyed at? Michele Ganeless, for ignoring half of Jon Stewart's audience, or the candidates, for only wanting to reach the male half? Or Ganeless again, for assuming that candidates only want to reach the male half?

Maybe I'm overthinking it, because the candidates reach out to young women all the time but the Daily Show is the only thing they have in common with young men. And maybe I, as a politically-savvy young female, managed to miss all the reaching out they were doing. But somehow I doubt that.

(However, I do suggest reading that study. It has a lot of interesting information about how informed the audiences of various news sources are. Colbert and Stewart rank right up at the top.)