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The\u00a0trial for Dominion Voting Systems\u2019 $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox News<\/a>, which legal experts are calling the most consequential defamation lawsuit in decades, is set to start Monday. The verdict will decide whether Fox News will be held accountable for spreading 2020 election lies\u2014conspiracies that were fundamental to\u00a0Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s\u00a0Big Lie. It could be the only time the likes of Fox Corp. chairman\u00a0Rupert Murdoch<\/strong>\u00a0and his son\u00a0Lachlan Murdoch<\/strong> will be forced to answer for the outlet\u2019s democracy-damaging coverage in a public setting. Some of the network\u2019s top stars, like\u00a0Tucker Carlson,<\/strong> are also expected to take the stand. It\u2019s worth watching live. Except, unless you\u2019ve made the trip to Wilmington, Delaware, and managed to get a seat in the courtroom, you can\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n The trial will not be televised. The only way Americans will be able to know what\u2019s going on inside the courtroom\u2014outside of getting one of the roughly 200 seats available in the courtroom\u2014will be by calling into an audio line provided by the court. \u201cIt\u2019s better than nothing, but it\u2019s not much better,\u201d says Columbia Journalism School professor\u00a0Bill Grueskin.<\/strong> Grueskin recalls his experience listening to the audio line for\u00a0Sarah Palin<\/strong>\u2019s defamation case against\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0New York Times<\/em> last year. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell who\u2019s talking half the time, especially when the lawyers start arguing a point, or you come into the testimony part way through,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Not only will the trial not be televised, the court has banned any recording or rebroadcasting of the audio feed\u2014hampering outlets\u2019 abilities to playback the proceedings on the radio or TV. A group of media outlets, including the\u00a0Times<\/em>, CBS, ABC, NBC, and ProPublica, wrote to Judge\u00a0Eric Davis<\/strong> seeking to record the audio stream of the trial, and to use excerpts of those recordings in their news programming. But Davis denied that request Thursday during a\u00a0pretrial hearing<\/a>, as the Associated Press\u00a0reported<\/a>. He said he\u2019d \u201cgone as far as I can go with response to access,\u201d and, signaling the Delaware Superior court\u2019s traditionally restrictive rules over public access, that the outlets were \u201cgetting the most access of any media in a Superior Court case in Delaware.\u201d Fox\u2019s lawyers filed an opposition brief to the media outlets\u2019 letter, which, in a statement to\u00a0Vanity Fair,<\/em> Fox called \u201can 11th hour request that risks compromising the integrity of the trial proceedings.\u201d Dominion Voting Systems declined to comment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a gift to Fox News that this is not going to be broadcast live, because it spares them from the nightmarish scenario of the visual of some of their leading anchors being cross-examined and confronted with their own texts, which are contrary to what they\u2019ve said on air,\u201d former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst\u00a0Elie Honig<\/strong> tells me. In the\u00a0lead up<\/a> to the trial,\u00a0internal communications<\/a>\u2014obtained through the\u00a0discovery process<\/a>\u2014have spilled out into the public, offering a damning look at Fox executives and stars dismissing unfounded claims and unreliable Trumpworld sources behind closed doors. \u201cSidney Powell<\/strong>\u00a0is lying,\u201d Carlson wrote in one private message, of the conspiracy-peddling Trump lawyer whom Fox repeatedly booked during the post-election period. Fox News\u2019s attorneys appear aware of the power and stakes of live testimonies; they have\u00a0actively<\/a>\u00a0tried<\/a> to keep Rupert Murdoch off the stand, citing hours of deposition he already gave.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the in-room narrative reporting in the world can\u2019t measure up to an actual audio-visual feed\u2014the imagery\u2014of a witness on the stand,\u201d says Honig, who pointed to the way images from trials like that of\u00a0Derek Chauvin<\/strong> over George Floyd\u2019s murder have been cemented in the public consciousness. \u201cThere\u2019s something lost\u201d when the public can\u2019t see the trial,\u00a0Carl Tobias,<\/strong> a law professor at the University of Richmond, says. The visual aids can be particularly \u201ccritical when you\u2019ve got two entirely different stories from both sides,\u201d says Tobias. \u201cHopefully the press can fill in, but it just won\u2019t be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Reporters will do their best to try to translate this moment. Among them is the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s\u00a0Erik Wemple,<\/strong> who was in the Wilmington courtroom this week covering the pretrial hearings. \u201cThe idea that you have to go to Wilmington just to see or get a visceral idea of what\u2019s happening in a courtroom is not really very democratic,\u201d Wemple tells me. The court has tried to accommodate members of the media in other ways, Wemple said, like letting them bring their computers into the courtroom to take notes (which \u201cis better than many other courts,\u201d he notes). But the restrictions on recording could really complicate the reporting process, especially if reporters aren\u2019t in the room, Grueskin noted. \u201cIt\u2019s much easier to get things wrong from a disembodied audio feed than from a good video feed,\u201d he says. Wemple agrees. \u201cMistakes can be made, quotes can be mangled,\u201d he tells me. \u201cWe\u2019re basically, on some level, screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n Wemple tells me he\u2019s planning on working from the overflow courtroom Monday, where a camera feed has been set up and reporters are allowed to live-tweet the proceedings. (Reporters in the courtroom, on the other hand, can\u2019t use the internet.) \u201cThere\u2019s a reason why cameras are in the overflow room for press, and that\u2019s so people can get some feel for facial expressions and body language in the moment of testimony and questioning\u2014which indicates that there is some value to a visual representation\u201d and \u201cletting people hear words in the voices of the witnesses and participants themselves,\u201d says NPR media correspondent and Murdoch expert\u00a0David Folkenflik,<\/strong> who is also covering the trial. There\u2019s a \u201cricher media experience that we\u2019re just not going to get,\u201d Wemple notes, adding the restrictions are \u201cnot exclusive to Delaware by any means; this is a problem all over the place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are the circumstances we labor under,\u201d says Folkenflik. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be an additional responsibility of the press corps covering this to render it accurately and fairly, but also to do what we can to capture a bit of the atmosphere of what it\u2019s like to be there in this high stakes drama, and to convey the intent of what people say in a way that may not be fully captured simply by words on a page.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n