You increase a free press by actually holding them to account as well.
Via NRO:
Following the November 2016 election, many of those deeply shocked by Donald Trump’s victory engaged in hysterical commentary about the imminent end of American freedom. This theme was frequently repeated prior to his taking office and helped generate a massive turnout at the women’s march that served as a counter-inaugural event. But even as Trump managed to fuel outrage from the “resistance” with controversial remarks and tweets in the months that followed, the talk about the collapse of democracy or parallels to Weimar Germany that had been so prevalent soon faded. While many Americans were angered by Trump, and his favorability ratings sunk to record lows for a first-year president, not even the most rabid Trump hater on the left or diehard Never Trump advocate on the right could really pretend that their liberties were in danger from an administration that — the presidential Twitter account notwithstanding — was governing in the same manner one would have expected from any conservative Republican.
Yet despite the clear gap between the post-election hysteria and reality, this week the totalitarian analogies for Trump are making a comeback. In a much-discussed Senate speech by Senator Jeff Flake and a Washington Post op-ed by Senator John McCain, the theme of Trump as a threat to the free press was given new life. In particular, Flake took a page out of the resistance playbook by directly comparing the president’s attacks on his media critics to the rhetoric used by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.