But from the post and the Dan Ellsberg testimony, it sounds like the news agencies even as far back as the Pentagon Papers were extremely aware of these needs,

But from the post and the Dan Ellsberg testimony, it sounds like the news agencies even as far back as the Pentagon Papers were extremely aware of these needs, and especially Assange himself was, and proceeded with extreme caution and very deliberate understanding of the necessary costs to be weighed when consider cases where publishing e.g. an unredacted name was clearly in the public interest and far outweighed the risk to the named party.