OLD Media Moves

ProPublica, Dow Jones, Bloomberg, NY Times sue SBA

ProPublica, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The New York Times and Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, sued the Small Business Administration on Tuesday over its refusal to release detailed information for loans provided through the $659 billion Paycheck Protection Program.

Paul Kiel of ProPublica writes, “The SBA hasn’t argued that the names of the companies that get these loans should stay secret. It has instead pointed to generalized statistics on its website or put off responding to the FOIA requests until sometime in the future. ‘At this time, the agency is focusing its efforts on assisting small businesses during this unprecedented disruption to the economy due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak,’ says a message on the SBA’s website.

“ProPublica, along with the four other news organizations, requested the information under the Freedom of Information Act.

“‘Enormous amounts of taxpayer money are being committed to what is supposed to be a lifeline for millions of struggling American businesses,’ said ProPublica General Counsel Jeremy Kutner. ‘The public has an urgent right and need to know how it is being spent, and whether it is being directed to those most in need. We are pleased to be acting along with colleagues at other leading news organizations to make sure this information promptly sees the light of day.'”

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.

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