To Make Your Conspiracy Theory Legit, Just Find an ‘Expert’

But even if an expert’s credentials seem to check out, they might still be bogus. “There’s a lot of false credentialing going on, especially at PR firms masquerading as think tanks that aren’t subject to peer review,” says Lisa Graves, executive director for the Center of Media and Democracy. Take, for example, the employees of the Center for Immigration Studies: you’d expect them to be immigration policy experts, right? Trouble is, CIS is actually a xenophobic hate group, founded by a longtime nativist. And these days, you don’t even have to be part of an organization to build an expert-sounding resume: many online journals will publish your research, valid or not, as long as you pay them first.