Some newspapers applying for the SBA’s PPP forgivable loan program using the affiliation waiver have experienced issues applying through their lenders. The News Media Alliance has been in contact with the SBA about this issue and we are offering assistance.

Newspapers that have applied for the SBA’s PPP forgivable loan program using the affiliation waiver can apply individually and separately from the parent owner, thereby circumventing employee count limitations.

If either of the following two situations applies to you, please see the instructions below to provide information that we will share with SBA:

1. If you have had trouble applying through your lender because your newspapers are applying separately but using the same EIN tax ID number as the corporate owner, the SBA has agreed to accept those loans manually. Their system will accept the combined loan application in their system under one EIN and I will provide them those which they can manually flag as compliant post-submission.

2. In addition, the SBA will make similar exceptions for second draw loans for newspapers that are unaffiliating themselves and applying as separate newspapers from the parent or group of newspapers in order to meet the loss requirements for a second draw (now allowable under the law). In those cases, banks have rejected some of the loans because the applicant name on the second draw loan is not the same as the first draw loan. SBA will make similar allowances here, manually. Their system will only allow a second draw loan if it has the same name as the first draw loan, and I will provide the EINs so that they can flag as compliant as separate newspapers under the second draw post-submission.

If you fall under either of the two categories above, please click here and provide the following information in order to allow for those loans to be accepted from the lender to the SBA:

• Your name / email
• EIN number
• Lender
• Full applicant name 
• Location (states) of newspapers 

Please contact News Media Alliance Senior VP and General Counsel, Danielle Coffey with any questions.