If WaPo decided to write an article that said you had slept with dozens of men, infecting the last eight with HIV, would that be acceptable, as long as you can’t prove they had specific malice toward you?
My bet is on you wanting to sue them.
The malice can be shown by demonstrating that they knowingly told false information about you in a way that they knew would hurt your reputation.
Free Republic would even be effected, you would not be able to voice any opinion., you want that?
We may not like what they write, and detest their motives, but it is still the best way to weed out fraud, corruption and all other sorts of illegal activity no matter who it is.
Without the press there would never have been a Watergate.