* there were no internet, so local communities strived to inform things happening around more objectively. Later on, there were no need for local newspapers
* capitalism was on the rise and on its infancy, but families with a single person working could afford some of the things (e.g. house, car) hence there were no urgent need to selling out all your principles
* people relied on books to consume information, since books were difficult to publish and not easy to revert (like removing a blog post), people gave an attention to what they're producing in the form of books, hence consumers of those books were also slightly demanding in what to expect from other sources
* less power of lobby groups
* not too many super-rich / billionaires, who can just buy anything they want anytime, or ruin the careers of people going against them, hence people probably acted more freely.
But again, can't tell exactly what happened at that time, but in my time press is not free. That's why I said "probably"