Biz media win case against SBA to release PPP loan details

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Small Business Administration must release detailed information about Paycheck Protection Program loans, reports Matthew Kish of the Portland Business Journal.

Kish reports, “The judge made the ruling in a case filed in mid-May by The Washington Post, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, ProPublica and The New York Times. American City Business Journals (parent company of this publication), ABC, CNN, NBC, the Associated Press and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined as plaintiffs in late May.

“The news organizations asked for the release of detailed information about the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program, including the names of borrowers and the loan amounts.

“‘It’s important for our business journals to hold public institutions like the SBA accountable when they are disbursing taxpayer funds,’ said Jon Wile, vice president of content for American City Business Journals, when ACBJ joined the lawsuit. ‘And for our readers, there is tremendous value for them to see which banks processed the loans and to see how much funding their competitors and peers received. It is critical this lending information be released in a complete and timely fashion.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.