For nearly 30 years, the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has helped preserve the public record.
It has captured more than 1 trillion web pages, documented history in real time, and ensured that journalists, researchers, historians, librarians, and the public can continue to access reporting long after stories are published. From breaking news and investigative journalism to local reporting and public statements, the Wayback Machine has become essential infrastructure for the public’s ability to preserve online news and culture.
Now, that preservation work is under threat.
As reported by Nieman Lab and WIRED, some publishers are blocking the Wayback Machine from preserving their reporting. As a result, some of the most important journalism being produced today may no longer be independently archived for future generations. For details on the publisher blocking, check out our FAQ: Publishers Blocking the Wayback Machine.
In response to these blocks, Fight for the Future has launched an open letter calling on major media organizations to work with the Internet Archive to ensure the news remains preserved and accessible in the Wayback Machine.
Sign the open letter here: https://www.savethearchive.com/NewsLeaders
The letter argues that preserving journalism is not only about access today, but about protecting the historical record itself:
“The freedom of journalists isn’t only the freedom to write, it’s also the freedom to have your work read and remembered for generations to come.”
At a moment when misinformation spreads rapidly, links disappear, websites change, and pressure to alter or erase reporting continues to grow, independent web preservation matters more than ever. The Wayback Machine helps make journalism more resilient by ensuring published reporting can still be referenced, verified, and studied years later.
The campaign also highlights a growing contradiction: while many publishers rely on the Wayback Machine for reporting, research, and fact-checking, some are simultaneously preventing their own journalism from being preserved.
The Internet Archive has long worked collaboratively with publishers and respects requests around access and preservation. The Wayback Machine has been designed for preservation: helping ensure that the historical record of the web is not lost.
If you believe journalism should remain accessible to historians, researchers, educators, and future generations, we encourage you to add your name to the letter.
Sign the open letter here: https://www.savethearchive.com/NewsLeaders
Though I have used the Wayback Machine, successfully, a few times, I am somewhat torn, even mystified, by this notion of preserving a snapshot of all the bits that have traversed (been published on?) the internet.
First, there is the very real idea that everything digital does not warrant preservation. Any more than every person who ever lived be preserved at the local Madame Tussaud’s. Even if all that was published digitally was, in some way, worthy, is it a good thing to store that record for all time?
Second, what is published is generally copyrighted, including news media. We’ve read about the kerfuffle regarding AI owners flaunting copyright laws to train their entities. Why would one expect less of a kerfuffle if an organization like archive.org wished to do the same thing, if for different (more altruistic?) reasons.
I imagine the news archives that have been available for some time through public libraries are paid services. To all of a sudden change the underlying rules of publishing and copyright to allow another organization the ability to freely hold and make accessible that same material seems a little, let’s call it, counterintuitive.
This shift requires more than a simple petition.
This endeavour reminds me a little of Aaron Swartz, and his doomed effort to make the scientific record freely accessible to all.
I’d be far more inclined to support an initiative to ensure that all the digital artifacts — e.g. music, ebooks — that I have purchased will always be available to me and not simply disappear when an organization goes poof. Even better, that I could bequeath my acquired licence to those digital artifacts so, say, archive.org, or my local library.