[vorpalhex]

I could understand a personal blog disappearing, but even major news websites aren't archived or mirrored except for bigger articles.

Sure, publish your personal data and it's on the internet forever, but publish a well thought out essay on identity over time and it's easily lost. Media is much, much worse.

[dredmorbius]

As of the early 1970s, broadcast TV news networks routinely recycled video footage and had no in-house library or research services.

Addressed in Edward Jay Epstein's News from Nowhere (1973).

https://archive.org/details/newsfromnowheret00epst/page/n5/m...

Early entertainment programming was also often not saved. Some present archives exist soley because audience members "pirated" copies off the air.

Preservation of commercially-motivated product is often a very low priority. (Ironic given the US's Mickey Mouse copyright legislation.)