Stimulus Update on CNBC

"White House Builds Business Coalition to Support Biden's Covid Relief Plan" is an article written by CNBC which describes the actions President Biden is taking tackling the epidemic. It was written by Brian Schwartz on February 10, 2021. I believe that this article is as a whole quite unbiased as it discusses President Biden's plans and uses multiple sources from different people with different backgrounds and purposes such as doctors but also the average american. That being said, I do believe that there is a slight bias in favor of Democrats as a lot of the views of the people they talked to were in complete agreement with the laws being passed and were happy with everything being handled even though in reality a lot of these laws, such as the 15 dollar minimum wage increase, and the 1400 dollars given to each family. For this reason I think that while they try to remain unbiased, this article at least leans a bit more democratic.

Description: The article begins by describing how much money is being invested in these relief plans, 1.9 trillion dollars, and how it is being discussed with several groups in order to provide the best results. This section makes sure to quote unidentified government officials that are closely related to the subject matter. According to them "most of the participants have expressed support for Biden's proposal" (Schwartz, 2021). Schwartz then mentions that even though according to officials most people express support, there are still people that "cautioned against raising the minimum wage to $15" (Schwartz, 2021). Finally, Scwartz talks about how Democrats plan on passing the bill with or without the support of their rival party.

Analysis: The article begins with every source cited by Schwartz agreeing with what Biden and his group are doing, this shows and as stated before we can see that the people that they spoke to all agreed with the plan and the way it was being executed even though a quick search about it online shows that the country is overall pretty split on what the relief should and shouldn't do. Schwartz himself later gives a statstic stating that "63% of small bussiness owners support the $1.9 trillion Covid relief package" (Schwartz, 2021). This shows that, while a Covid relief plan is necessary and accepted, the details are not making everyone happy as we can clearly see with the statistics. 

Interpretation: From what I read in both this article and online as a whole as a person that likes to stay informed on important matters, it would be important to discuss the plan and how this is both positive and negative, it isn't enough to simply state what is going to happen and include some quotes from the people that were directly involved in writing the bill. This article is missing the other voices to be truly unbiased and accurate in its assessment of the relief plan and without it the article comes off as a simple list of facts about what will happen with quotes of confirmation and excitement from democratic officials.

Evaluation. As a whole, I believe the information presented in the article is accurate and the subjects Schwartz interviewed were both knowledgeable and important in the conclusion he had, you can't have a proper argument without presenting two sides otherwise it becomes a presentation. Of course, clearly the intent of this article wasn't to discuss the different opinions and options available in America, but instead it just wanted to inform the people and give the people optimism that everything will be alright.

Engagement: I think that people should learn from this and actively seek out information, even from sources or places that we aren't comfortable with and differ from our own thoughts and opinions, always double check things that are said because everyone makes mistakes and some things might not be exactly true, or perhaps someone with different opinions might shed light on a matter that will help you form a new, updated opinion.

Sources

Schwartz, B. (2021, February 10). White House builds business coalition to support Biden’s Covid relief plan. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/stimulus-update-biden-white-house-builds-business-coalition-to-support-plan.html