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When I say that that job must not be necessary, what I mean is that the laws of libel and slander must be enforced.
It’s easy to say that New York Times Co. v. Sullivan was a unanimous decision by SCOTUS, and it makes it impractical to sue for libel in a great many cases. But then, Morrison v. Olson would have been unanimous too, if not for then-freshman Justice Antonin Scalia - and nobody now thinks that Morrison is good law. History quite promptly revealed the wisdom of Scalia’s dissent.
A half-century of water has gone under the bridge since Sullivan was promulgated in 1964, and in retrospect the case is not nearly as representative as has been claimed. First because the plaintiff was neither a conservative nor a liberal - as now understood - and thus was an easy target. And secondly, because the salient fact about “the media” - the fact that American national journalism is a cartel - was not before the court, and would have been laughed out of the Warren Court if it had been brought to it. It is also true that 1964 was at the dawning of the TV age, and we are now well into the Internet era.
It is easy to show that American journalism is a cartel and, in retrospect, clearly was one decades before 1964. The wire services constitute a continual virtual meeting of all major journalism, and Adam Smith’s dictum " People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices” predicts that by now "a conspiracy against the public” is inevitable. That conspiracy is, I submit, the redefinition of terms of political discussion such that, in a Newspeak sense, it is difficult to articulate and thus to even think outside the “box” of pro-big government propaganda.

The desire of being believed, the desire of persuading, of leading and directing other people, seems to be one of the strongest of all our natural desires. — Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
The journalism cartel expresses that desire by instituting a redefinition of “objective” to mean, exactly in accord with the opinion of the journalism cartel.” But the cartel, like the mafia, tries to deny its very existence, and certainly the existence of a particular political viewpoint within it. The cartel also coopts every other positive political label - “liberal,” “centrist,” “moderate,” you name it - all are defined to mean “in perfect accord with the viewpoint of the membership of the journalism cartel (which of course 'doesn’t exist,’ and certainly ‘doesn’t have a political viewpoint').”
The reason the journalism cartel has a socialist political perspective is, IMHO, the fact that journalism is on the lookout of “news.” Not just any event makes great copy, tho - journalism is on the lookout for bad news - news which will throw society in a bad light. And throwing society in a bad light inherently suggests that government should "do something.” As if government never made any problem worse . . .
Not only are the wire services, individually and collectively, sufficient condition for the emergence of a conspiracy against the public, they are artifacts of the high cost of telegraphy bandwidth in a bygone era. Today, telegraphy bandwidth is dirt cheap in comparison. If the wire services didn’t already exist, it would be laughable to suggest that creation of them should be allowed. The wire services should be abolished, and their membership/subscription base put on notice that they have been acting anticompetitively and must change their ways.
And that is where discussion of the Sullivan decision comes in. Sullivan prevents government officials and judges from suing for libel. But the reality is that at this point in history all Democrat politicians are “liberals” - are in full go-along-and-get-along mode with the journalism cartel - and therefore, a rule which prevents politicians from suing for libel is a rule that prevents Republicans from suing for libel.
The Sullivan decision claims to be required by the First Amendment. But in reality, the First Amendment is no reason for any change in the rights of the people. That is because, as Scalia pointed out, the Bill of Rights was crafted to prevent changes in the rights of the people. Since the Bill of Rights was intended - by its authors and ratifiers - to prevent changes in the rights of the people, our rights are not defined by the First Amendment or the Second Amendment but by law as it existed before the ratification of the Constitution. And that is why the First Amendment cannot be summarized airily as “freedom of the press.” The First Amendment reified “the freedom . . . of the press” as it preexisted the Constitution. And that is why libel law (and pornography prohibitions, BTW) survive the passage of the First Amendment.
The Warren Court justices knew that, of course - but they wrote Sullivan as if they didn’t. The Sullivan decision systematically deprives politicians who do not go along with the journalism cartel legal recourse when the cartel takes action to punish them for obeying the principle of republican government:
“The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests.” ― Alexander Hamilton