For those who think this is some sort of abstract problem, the two papers I wrote most for simply shut down their websites a couple of years ago when the buyer from GateHouse realized print journalism isn't a cash cow.
I'd not felt a need to archive my own stories and columns because the site would always be there. I literally lost years of my own content, but this is larger than "writer pissed about business decisions" -- it sends us back to the days of microfiche for research into local news.
Just to rub salt in the wound, once the domain for the paper I was news editor at some 20 years ago came up for renewal, a pink-slime org bought it and used -- oddly -- bylines from the sister paper of people I'd worked with who would never produce the slop being attributed to them.
As papers continue to shutter, this sort of preservation becomes increasingly important, especially against the backdrop of a government doing its Orwellian best to rewrite history.