On Tuesday, April 21, Congress approved a replenishment of $475B of the SBA program to assist businesses impacted by COVID-19. Unfortunately, this action did not include a provision to specifically provide affiliation waivers for local news providers.
We will continue our push to include local newspapers in the next round of funding, along with our other priorities to support members of America's Newspapers.
However, we need your help. We are asking our members to support these efforts in your local markets in a couple of ways:
- Run an editorial explaining why Congress needs to support local news providers during the COVID-19 crisis. An editorial from America's Newspapers is below, which you are free to use.
- Contact your local representatives and urge them to support funding for local news providers.
A list of contacts, as well as talking points to include, can be found at the links below:
Together we can continue to show the importance of newspapers and local journalism, not just during times of crisis, but everyday.
