Will readers be able to find deleted articles? (Credit: Keshpatel via Wikipedia)

The accessibility of news stories from the past fosters accuracy and journalists’ ability to provide context for current reporting.

Back in February, Jim Romenesko reported on his website that U.S. News & World Report had, sadly, deleted archival content from its website.

U.S. News editor Brian Kelly told Romenesko that the magazine killed “archived web content published prior to 2007” from its website when it got a new content management system.  Kelly cited in general terms where readers could find the old content.

“Those stories, which mostly originated in the print magazine, are available on the LexisNexis and EBSCO archive services, as well as in bound volumes,” Kelly wrote.

iMediaEthics wondered if most if not all the pre-2007 stories were findable or was it only limted to certain years? The New York Times has its online archive going back for subscribers back to the 1800s.

Desiree Yael Vester, iMediaEthics researcher, looked through LexisNexis, EBSCO and other databases.

LexisNexis Academic contains stories from Oct. 2004 to Dec. 2010, for example. And ProQuest contains articles from 2004 to 2010.

Check out what iMediaEthics found in the databases. More here.