You cite the Wall Street Journal as a respected institution, but I know I've seen them do this. Part of the problem with this type of thing is that publications often go out of their way to erase the existence of an aritcle if they intend to delete it.
Here's an example of an articles scrubbed from existence, including from the internet archive:
It's also unavailable, but searchable via google. Google simply shows a 404 page from the WSJ as the top result. The WSJ has never formally retracted this either.
Now since this is the WSJ, obviously the article was copied wholesale and pasted into blogs and the like regardless, so it can't be completely scrubbed. As a matter of fact, a search for:
"The filing was a response to a FOIA lawsuit brought in March by conservative organization Citizens United" will bring up many blogs with the full text of the article, but that doesn't change the fact that WSJ silently scrubbed the article from the internet archive, their own website, and the google cache.
Aslo, if you search "url:http://www.wsj.com/article_email/" , you won't find any active link at all. It seems they have changed their website structure.
Strange, the first result for me is the one I linked. Same if I search the name of the article. Google doesn't show me yours at all.
Happy to admit I was wrong about this though. I only remember this article because it came up in a thread about Internet Archive removing content sometimes without any explanation.
Here's an example of an articles scrubbed from existence, including from the internet archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170301000000*/http://www.wsj.c...
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/hillary-clinton-vs-foia-144...
It's also unavailable, but searchable via google. Google simply shows a 404 page from the WSJ as the top result. The WSJ has never formally retracted this either.
Now since this is the WSJ, obviously the article was copied wholesale and pasted into blogs and the like regardless, so it can't be completely scrubbed. As a matter of fact, a search for:
"The filing was a response to a FOIA lawsuit brought in March by conservative organization Citizens United" will bring up many blogs with the full text of the article, but that doesn't change the fact that WSJ silently scrubbed the article from the internet archive, their own website, and the google cache.