Racial bias in media coverage: accounting for structural position and public interest

Is media coverage racially biased? Past studies documenting differences in the quantity of coverage are small scale or anecdotal. In this article, we investigate whether Blacks receive less coverage than Whites who have reached similarly prominent positions and enjoy similar public interest. We analysed 200 million newspaper references in English-language media to about 32,000 prominent Black and White individuals, predominantly US born. The results do not support the bias hypothesis: Blacks overall receive systematically more coverage than Whites in comparable structural positions and their coverage is on par with that of select Whites who attract equal public interest.