I believe a free press is valuable.  And I know that the politicians  WANT to control it.  

We have never had "media that shows independence from corporate and political influence".  Why do we have Newspapers that have Democrat-Herald in their mastheads?  Or the Free "Republic"  etc.  They were often mouthpieces for particular viewpoints and still are.  Fox News.  Breitbush.  OPB.  Washington Post.  Miami Herald.  New York Times. Eugene Register-Guard. They all have their own biases and agendas. 

Investigative journalism is out of style.  Too expensive and insufficient  monetary reward to the publishers.  

The only solution is to hope that as many media as possible survive so that there  are multiple viewpoints rather than just one which has been approved by the government in power at the time.