To preserve their work — and drafts of history — journalists take archiving into their own hands

When news sites shut down, those sites’ owners often don’t prioritize the preservation of the content.

MTV pulled down MTV News in June. After Deadspin was sold, many of its archives temporarily disappeared. This week, Flaming Hydra reported that The Awl’s archives are gone. And those examples are just from the past couple of months; in 2021, the authors of a Reynolds Journalism Institute report found that just 7 out of 24 newsrooms they interviewed were fully preserving their news content.