I won't say bias. Just that people are a bit lazy. No one wants to dig around to find quality newbie posters. Whereas, hero/legendary members with a ton of green trust, shine among commoners. Also, many newbies post in altcoin/bounty/non-crypto sections where the chances of getting merits are even lower. I don't wanna say it, but a newbie has more chances of getting merits in meta section vs. other sections. Plus merit donors expect exceptionally high quality posts from newbies as they don't want to help rank up spammers or sometimes clever copy-paste posters. I personally prefer to give merits to lower ranked quality posters.
I wouldn't say that Meta is a good place for a newbie to get merits, particularly now that the pity wave of merits after the 1 merit requirement introduction has subsided. Check out
DdmrDdmr's thread on where users tend to get their first merits.
The best place for a newbie to be noticed is where they can genuinely contribute. A real newbie (not someone's alt) is unlikely to bring up anything useful in Meta.