Is it normal for an article on their site to be unavailable after a couple of weeks, or does it look like they singled out these articles?
many news orgs drop connectivity after a period of time....but I have seen years-old articles previously posted on these Duke/rape threads from the local rags in NC, so there is a way for the posters to find them. Without the correct title or an exact phrase from the piece, persistence re keywords is the only way I know. I noticed lots of stuff taken down re kerry that indicated a cache existed, but even many of the caches led to 'page not found' or some such. Obviously I do not know the real answer to your Q, but I'll bet that someone in NC does....