Yes, the fact that they've been wary about talking about it for two years in the hopes of getting back in the publisher's good graces

Actually they've already put up a post talking about this

and the fact that not a single other outlet revealed any of this information (though they surely had access) shows that journalists are oh so brave.

Er... no? Sources are not universal, if people tell Kotaku stuff off the record it doesn't mean they're telling anyone else, as Totillo puts it:

At times, though, we’ll stumble on information about a new, unannounced game or, more often, will find some unsolicited information in our inbox.

I've seen similar scoops elsewhere, a journalist being left in a room with concept art they aren't supposed to see, etc.

It's clear from your comments in this and the previous thread that you have some personal stake in this, but whether you're a journo who thinks that they're fucking Bob Woodword, or a dev/publisher who think they're somehow the underdog in this battle

Neither. Just a journo who's tired of people telling him he's corrupt with no evidence, and naively thought Ghazi would be better than Gamergate in this respect.

it doesn't change the fact that we've seen countless examples of media outlets cowing to publisher demands

If you have please name them, because I can only think of one, the Gamespot/Gerstmann affair, which is famous precisely because it was a unique scandal (and note no journo actually engaged in corrupt behavior, but instead resigned rather than be complicit in it).

You repeating "NO EVIDENCE. NO. NO. NO. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS AND REFUSE TO GOOGLE IT" doesn't change that.

I don't even know what you're expecting me to google here mate. But I'm pretty sure 'game journalist corrupt' is just gonna get me a bunch of GG mumbo jumbo.