Conspiracy Theories 

Reporter Kelly Weill has spent most of her journalism career covering misinformation and conspiracy theories. As a recent college graduate in 2016, Weill entered the media world at a time of immense change, when terms like “fake news” and “disinformation” became part of the mainstream American vocabulary. Coinciding with this time was the rise in “Flat Earthers,” a group of people who support the idea that “we all live on a flat plane, under a solid dome, ringed by an impossible wall of ice.” In Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything, Weill sets out to explain where the fringe theory of Flat Earth came from, how it relates to other conspiracy theories, and what it is about society that leads people to believe things that most consider inherently untrue.
Kelly Weill is a reporter at The Daily Beast, where she covers extremism, disinformation, and the internet. She is a frequent media contributor on the topics of her work and has been featured on Nightline, CNN, and Al Jazeera, among other outlets, to discuss conspiracy theories, such as the Flat Earth theory and similar ideas outside of mainstream acceptance. She holds a dual degree in journalism and English from New York University.
Moderated by Anna Merlan
Merlan is a New Mexico-born, Los Angeles-based journalist and author, specializing in subcultures, alternative communities, conspiracy theories, crime, belief, death, sexual violence and women’s lives. She is currently a reporter at Motherboard, a division of VICE. Her work has also appeared in Rolling Stone, BBC Travel, Topic, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times. She is the author of the book Republic of Lies.
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