Bio:

Dr. Craig Warmke is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University (NIU), where he specializes in metaphysics, logic, and the philosophy of computing and information. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2015.

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Abstract:

A journalist pens a pro-Tesla piece but doesn’t disclose her ownership of Tesla stock. Mistake! She’s violated a reasonable policy for both journalists and academics—inform readers that you’re invested in an asset when you write about it. Financial disclosures provide valuable information about the author’s potential biases. After all, owning an asset might positively skew one’s judgment about it. But have you ever seen someone disclose that they’ve lost money on an asset? Wouldn’t you want to know that a financial journalist lost their shirt betting against Tesla before you read their anti-Tesla article?

By looking at poor investments, including some of my own, we propose new financial disclosure guidelines for journalists and academics. And, yes, discuss we will discuss the best-performing asset of the last 15 years—bitcoin.