If you want to contact them about it you can hit their Geocities web site or just email them at DalienRailroad@netzero.com. 

Bradley has informed me that China’s trains make it the bomb and much much better than America in the most important ways.

America, the country where an actual criminal grifter can be President, and use the office to enable all of his criminal grifter friends and family, but an automotive writer can’t own stock in a car company.

Per my previous comment, I do not find wining and dining “perfectly acceptable.” It’s an unfortunate side of this industry, and I wish we had a huge budget that allowed us to pay for it all on our own. With that said, there is a difference between this and buying stocks:

When journalists allow an automaker to fly them…

“We were going to drop this lovely new Porsche off at David Tracy’s house, but when we pulled up, we suddenly feared that it would catch tetanus and promptly left.”

This is false. I have not ever, nor will I ever, write a story at the behest of an advertiser. I write what I want to write.

There is a wall between our ad team and our editorial team,  which is good, because Jalopnik writes with its readers in mind, and never with advertisers in mind.

Here’s an example from the Associated Press’s Code of Ethics:

That’s a good question. My view is: If you don’t know that you own car stock, then you can’t be influenced to write a certain way. That’s what matters: objectivity.

Owning stock in a company you cover is considered unacceptable in our industry. To your point about being wined and dined—it’s not perfectly acceptable. It’s the dirtiest part of our line of work. The way we handle it is: If you find yourself in a situation where you have to choose to receive special treatment from an…

Yes, it is a strict policy at Jalopnik, and at any established media outlet.

You can absolutely divulge that Munro had purchased and sold Tesla stock this year without giving a jackass like Niedermayer any credence.

But getting wined, dined, and put up in nice hotels is perfectly acceptable? Those all have monetary value and are direct gifts. But owning stock is too much? What about owning index funds?

Definitely they did in the 1980s.

They did, and Peugeot still makes best pepper grinders!

Sadly, besides us car nerds, literally no one in the United States knows Peugeot even exists.

People will rag on French cars for having been unreliable and poorly built the last time they were sold here. They were. I lived through several French cars and know first-hand what an infuriating PITA they can be.

Aww. :)

A reader once caught me using my Smart Fortwo to rescue a Buell.

What are you talking about? Amazon, Google etc were a bubble. When the tech bubble popped around 2000 they lost about 90% in value. It took the Amazon 10 years to recover and under a more rational market its revenue had to increase 15x for its stock price to recover, similarly it took Microsoft 16 years to recover…

They always get the best pot.