I'd also look for signs of trying to influence journalists and silence independent reporting. Such as back in the George W. Bush era, United States, when speaking against the White House was a fast track to getting blackballed out of the press corps. We learned about torture and Blackwater massacres of villages through foreign news agencies.

Before that, it was simply that huge rich companies controlled the few channels that existed (newspapers and the big three, ABC, NBC, CBS. PBS got away with some investigatory journalism due to its small following. Kids watched Sesame Street and that is what kept the PBS budget alive. (Now, Big Bird's a communist.)