I expect that, given the reporters have already made the information available to the public, that they personally would not have been unamenable to giving it out when the situations you mentioned arose; and that even in the case they were, the existence of the information would make it easier to collect from the department itself and that in any case, the reporters could be subpoenaed for the information. That some evidence can be excluded as immaterial in a different context is largely irrelevant.

I also expect that, even in the worst case you are trying to imply, I would feel the same way about publishing the names for the same reasons. I think you are either trying to get me to admit that–which I do freely–, or you are simply uncomfortable that you and I have a different position on the tradeoffs.

But they haven’t made the names-part of the data available to the public, in your scenario. They’ve made an editorial decision that it’s not in the public interest to know the names of the officers — just like most news orgs don’t publish the name of rape victims even though it’s part of the court record. Virtually no news org will want to set a precedent of selectively releasing info that it previously decided it wanted to withhold.

Yes, we obviously have a different position about the trade offs, that’s why I replied to your comment in the first place. However, what I’m arguing is that your current position is untenable. It is not logistically or morally feasible for a news org to provide upon request info that it has used its editorial judgment to redact.