Theater of Lies: Ted Griffith’s book on misinformation speaks on everyday lies

Communications professor and Burlington local Ted Griffith’s new book, Theater of Lies, turns 40 years of public affairs experience into a guide on how to navigate a world of misinformation.

Published on March 7 2024, Theater of Lies is about the tricks and techniques public figures use to persuade and endear themselves to people, and how the general population can protect themselves from misinformation.

“The book is my attempt to raise a flag and say that this is a public health crisis,” Griffith said. “If you see how people are trying to influence others, they rely on misinformation and what people believe. Whether it’s in our school systems, in our politics or in our businesses, we have to wake up and demand better of ourselves.”

Griffith’s career in public affairs exposed him to the tools used by people who spread misinformation, and the idea of writing a book on these tools and strategies had been in his mind for years before the pandemic inspired him to put pen to paper.

“When I first started hearing the debates about Covid, before we even got into the vaccinations, the story became political,” he said. “People were saying it was created by the Chinese or that it was funded by the American government doing research in a lab, and I realized that there was a problem that we needed to solve and that misinformation was getting in the way of the solution.”

The reception of the book was largely positive, with Theater of Lies making it to bookstores across the world.

In his book, Griffith speaks of some of the ways that people use human nature against others to get them to believe what they want to believe.

“We’ve been raised in a binary decision world,” he said. “Things are right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, male or female. Everything is presented in binary terms, and now we’re finding that there’s a lot of grey area in things. Producers (of misinformation) take advantage of our need for simple answers by only offering binary solutions. If someone only offers you two options, they’re manipulating you.”

Griffith has also written Restoration, a crime fiction novel set in Hamilton, and has plans to write a historical fiction novel in the coming years.