This has never been the case. Never. While some journalism sources operate in a facts-only manner, all journalistic sources have bias as to which stories they research. And historically, the press has been about propaganda, editorials, and selling papers at least as much as about reporting.

Labeling news organization as "government-funded" is less informative than labeling them as "propaganda" or "editorializing". The major reason to so label them is, itself, propaganda. With the second reason being a warning to the reader to practice even more diligence than normal.