It was on January 22, 2017 that President Trump’s counsellor to the president, Kellyanne Conway, defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the size of the crowd that showed up for Trump’s inauguration.

Alternative facts, she said, in explaining Spicer’s claim that Trump’s crowd was the largest to ever witness an inauguration. Not lies. Not falsehoods. Just alternative facts.

Our guest on the Lean to the Left podcast is Ted Griffith, author of the upcoming book, Theater of Lies: Misinformation divides us -- with purpose. How to protect ourselves, and why we must. It will be out later this month and will reveal the secrets that leaders in business, media, and government don’t want us to know about lies and misinformation -- the spin.

Griffith is a 40-year communications professional who has spent his career mastering and employing the tools of mass persuasion. A communications professional who has spent the last forty years learning and employing the tools of persuasion, Griffith has represented high profile leaders in sectors such as mining, energy, healthcare, water, tourism, waste management, municipal and provincial governments, and amateur and professional sports.

Griffith served as a vice president at Canada’s largest PR firm, NATIONAL Public Relations, and was its number one consultant for several years. He has expertise in crisis communications and worked behind the scenes on the 1988 Ben Johnson Olympic Steroid Scandal, Canada’s tainted blood scandal, power failures, and various product recalls.

Here are some questions we asked Griffith as we explored the impact of lies & misinformation on our society:

Q. From your long experience you say that lies and misinformation have infected most every part of our lives. How is that, and what can we do about it?

Q. Why are lies so often used to control people? We’ve certainly seen that in this era of Donald Trump.

Q. How can people discern if they are being fed lies or “alternative facts” by people in power?

Q. Do you believe people have been trained since their childhoods to believe lies by people in authority? Please explain.

Q. What role do you expect the Theater of Lies to play in the 2024 election?

Q. What is the illusion of binary thinking, how someone can believe something they know nothing about?

Q. How does your book, “Theater of Lies,” deal with all of this?

Q. One of the issues that is often the subject of misinformation is climate change. How has climate change been affected by lies and misinformation?

Q. Do you believe the use of the term climate change rather than global warming is part of misinformation strategies? By whom?

Q. What can we do to combat lies and misinformation in the climate change space?

Q. Tell us what your company, The Fixers Group, does for its clients.

Q. When, exactly, will your book be published and where can people find it? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support.