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Publisher conspiracy is not protected by the first amendment.

The funny thing is, as Scalia noted, that the First Amendment did not create freedom of the press, the Second Amendment did not create “gun rights,” and so on. Those rights, and others, preexisted the Constitution. In fact, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments

Amendment 9
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment 10
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
express the reason why no Bill of Rights was enumerated in the body of the Constitution. The point is, the first eight amendments enumerate some of our rights. Enumerate, but did not create. You’ve heard of “matter can neither be created nor destroyed?” The Framer’s concept of rights is the same - they did not presume to be able to create rights or to destroy them.
That’s the setup to the main point of this post, which is that “the” freedom of the press as it existed pre-1A did not include the right to libel anyone with impunity. And that I submit, is a central error in the infamous New York Times v. Sullivan decision. In Sullivan, the Warren Court asserted that it was enforcing the First Amendment (by suppressing most libel suits by government officials). But the First Amendment didn’t create indemnity against libel of public officials - that either existed before 1A, or it does not exist now.
As to your reference to “conspiracy,” Adam Smith said that " 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.” And ever since the foundation of the wire services (i.e., before the Civil War), all major journalism outlets continually “meet together,” virtually, via the AP and/or other wire services. It is therefore absurd to take for granted that journalists embody the public interest; it is far more likely instead that they conspire against it.
My candidate for the place to look for that conspiracy is the propaganda campaign to the effect that “journalists are objective.” I see three problems:

That claim is fatuous and incorrect, in that while objectivity is a (laudable) goal it is not a state of being. Trying to be objective is hard work, and knowing that you are objective is impossible. In that sense it pretty much implies that the claimant does not take the discipline of trying to be objective at all seriously. It seems that whatever effort they make towards assuring objectivity is strictly pro forma. And belonging to a mutual admiration society claiming objectivity for you does not change the fact that no one can be sure of his/her own objectivity - let alone be able to prove it.

That claim politically homogenizes journalism, forcing all journalists to conform or risk being labeled, “not a journalist, not objective.”

That claim marks those who endorse it as cynics. That is true because all journalists know that “If it bleeds, it leads” put them on the lookout for bad news. Thus, all journalists know that journalism is negative. And only a cynic could claim that “negativity is objectivity.”

Journalists are cynical towards American society; indeed in the Transaction Analysis paradigm, the journalism cartel does not relate to the public as adult to adult but like a [judgmental] parent to a child. Meaning, that any attempt to relate to journalism cartel members which does not recognize the journalism cartel as authoritative is bound to be fraught indeed. “Liberals" want the government to relate to the individual in exactly the same patronizing way that journalists do. Indeed, no one gets labeled “liberal” unless they harmonize themselves precisely with journalism.
Hence, journalism as we know it inherently promotes socialism. And promoting socialism was the furthest thing from the minds of the ratifiers of the Constitution.