SMALL BUSINESS : Lake Forest Owners of Black Publication Laud New SBA Policy

After 41 years of inexplicable existence in the books of the U.S. Small Business Administration, an obscure rule that prevented media-related businesses from getting loans from the Small Business Administration has been ditched by the SBA. The SBA adopted the “opinion molder” rule in 1953 to avoid the appearance that the U.S. government was trying to control or influence editorial freedom. The rule made SBA loans off-limits for anyone engaged in “the creation, origination, expression, dissemination, propagation or distribution of ideas, values, thoughts, opinions or similar intellectual property, regardless of medium, form or content.”

But in abolishing it this month, the SBA acknowledged there wasn’t a good reason to continue the policy. The action opens the doors to about 75,000 small businesses in the nation.

One business in Orange County that applauded the change is the Black Orange, a Lake Forest-based publication of news about African Americans in the county. Randall and Joyce Jordan, who publish the monthly, say that in 1992 and again last year they sought a $100,000 SBA loan to support their recession-battered business. But both times bankers cited the opinion-molder rule in their rejection.

“Now we have an opportunity to go back to them,” Joyce Jordan says.