As opening arguments neared on Tuesday afternoon, even the most hardened skeptics might have found themselves thinking the impossible was actually going to happen: the corrosive lies of Fox News would go on trial, Rupert Murdoch would be forced to the witness stand, and positive societal change might result. The pre-trial filings – panicky emails and text messages from executives and hosts about going too heavy with the truth about the election – demonstrated that Fox’s highest priority was keeping its Trump-loving audience happy, not communicating the inconvenient facts about Joe Biden’s election. (Smartmatic seeks even more money than Dominion – $2.7bn in damages, claiming that Fox News hurt the company’s reputation by lying about how its technology was used in the 2020 election.)