WOMEN of colour were “invisible” in the Scottish media during the Holyrood 2026 election campaign, a report has found.
Pass the Mic, an organisation working to amplify the expertise of women of colour in news, in collaboration with the University of Strathclyde, investigated the coverage during the Scottish Parliament campaign.
The research, conducted by Dr Melody House, Professor Karen Boyle and supported by Pass the Mic founder Talat Yaqoob, found that women of colour remain “very marginal” in Scottish political coverage.
It also found that election news and commentary remain heavily male dominated – with men making up 70.8% of bylines and 73.6% of people in the news.
Only three opinion pieces focused on the election were written by women of colour during the campaign, all of which were published in The National.
The analysis examined media coverage between April 10 to election day on May 7, covering 1505 stories, 121 from television and 1384 from newspapers.
Men made up 53.4% of all anchors, journalists and reporters in election stories, with women at 26.1% and 20.4% gender unknown.
“When the stories authored by anchors, journalists or reporters whose gender or race is unknown were taken out of the mix, white men made up 67% of all recognisable figures,” the report said.
While TV was more gender balanced than print – 50.2% of anchors and journalists were women – there was just one man of colour, Rahim Cham from STV, and two women of colour, Halla Mohieddeen from BBC Scotland and Vidushi Tiwari from STV, covering the election during this period.
When it comes to print journalism, 54% of journalists covering the election were men while 22.2% were women. With unknown authors removed, men accounted for 70.8% of bylines.
Women of colour remained an “extremely marginal presence” with only 0.7% of bylines.
The report adds: “Focusing on commentary and opinion articles specifically, just three commentaries relating to the election were written by women of colour across this four-week period.
“Two of these were by regular National columnist Assa Samaké-Roman, the other was by Pass the Mic founder Talat Yaqoob – also in The National. No papers other than The National carried commentary or opinion by women of colour.”
Men also significantly outnumbered women appearing in news coverage during the election period, at 73.6%, while women made up 24.6%. A further 13 people (0.2%) were explicitly identified as trans, non-binary or other, a similar pattern to a previous study conducted following the 2024 General Election.
It also found that men of colour were disproportionately represented compared to the Scottish population – which is 92.86% white – largely accounted for due to the “high profile accorded to Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour”.
“Sarwar appeared 432 times, accounting for 63.3% of all people of colour,” the report states.
“Even accounting for the Sarwar effect, the number of other men of colour appearing in election stories was considerably higher than the number of women of colour: 155 men, compared with 94 women.”
Political party leaders tend to dominate media coverage during election campaigns but in 2026, Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Greens co-leader, is the only female leading a party.
When the analysis looked at who was quoted in election stories, only 1.3% were women of colour – 32 in 1384 newspaper stories.
Pass the Mic founder Yaqoob said: “It is disappointing but not surprising to see the results of this research.
“Over a number of elections now, we have seen that women of colour remain marginalised and invisible in political commentary and wider news.
“Given the current political environment where we are seeing women of colour’s lives used as part of culture wars and divisionary tactics – hearing directly from women of colour on what they needed from this election was crucial, and has been an important opportunity which has been missed.”
Dr House, lead researcher on the report, added: “Given the current febrile nature of politics, it is incredibly disappointing to see that women in general, and women of colour more specifically, remain so marginal to Scottish election news. The work of Pass the Mic is depressingly vital in this context.”
Kaukab Stewart, former SNP MSP and the first woman of colour to take on a ministerial role, said there were “clear inadequacies” of diverse representation during the election.
“It’s extremely disappointing that only 1.6% of those in the coverage were women of colour,” she added. “Action must be taken to address this to make sure women of colour are not left out of mainstream coverage.”
Jean Johansson, presenter and columnist, added: “I’m disappointed to see how women of colour were so badly represented in the recent Scottish election coverage. It's either deliberate exclusion or an ignorance to understand the importance of diverse contributors. No more lip service, our voices should be heard.”
The National has been a partner with Pass the Mic for four years, and in that time has published 15 articles by participants.
Yaqoob added: "It is great that The National has been such an avid supporter of Pass the Mic, we welcome these partnerships, and welcome the change our opinion writing programme is making.
“But we need change to be faster and deeper across all news and media outlets; we need women of colour's expertise and experiences to be given the fair platform they deserve, especially when so much of politics and policy-making excludes and negatively impacts them"
