Posted today for no particular reason:

“A streamlined newspaper for a streamlined era” is the slogan that replaces “A free press means a free people” in Frank Capra and Robert Riskin’s 1941 classic film, “Meet John Doe.”

The threat in the film is incipient fascism led by a wealthy and corrupt industrialist who starts John Doe clubs exploiting the goodness of naive character John Doe, played by Gary Cooper, to ease his way into the White House. When he learns how he has been used, John Doe prepares to sacrifice his life to highlight the truth and prevent the industrialist from using our democracy against itself as a road to totalitarian power.

Again, the film is from 1941 and explicitly connects the destruction of a free press to the rise of homegrown fascism.