# 404 Media Articles Scraper (`acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper`) Actor

Scrapes the latest articles from 404 Media, returning title, URL, author, publication date, and full text as flat rows. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Acquisition Automation Co.](https://apify.com/acquistion-automation) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Other
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $19.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

### 404 Media Articles Scraper

**Scrape 404 Media articles, from the latest posts to a full archive, up to a million per run.** Each article comes with its title, URL, author, publication date, and full text. No login or API key. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

404 Media is a journalist-owned publication covering technology, hacking, and internet culture, but it has no public API and its content is scattered across the site. This Actor reads the public article feed directly and returns each article as a clean, flat row. You get the latest stories or a deep back catalog, ready for analysis, monitoring, or archival.

| Who uses it | What they scrape 404 Media for |
|---|---|
| Journalists and media analysts | Monitor 404 Media's coverage of specific tech topics or breaking stories |
| Researchers and academics | Build a dataset of 404 Media articles for content or discourse analysis |
| Content curators and newsletter writers | Automatically pull the latest 404 Media headlines and summaries for roundups |
| SEO and content marketers | Track 404 Media's article output to identify trending topics and keywords |

### What it does

This Actor collects 404 Media articles from the public feed and returns each one as a flat row with title, URL, author, publication date, and full text.

- 📰 **Latest articles:** Fetch the most recent posts from the 404 Media homepage feed.
- 🔢 **Configurable volume:** Set the maximum number of articles per run, from 1 to 1,000,000.
- 📄 **Full text extraction:** Each row includes the complete article body, not a snippet.
- 🗂️ **Structured output:** Every article is returned as a flat object with consistent fields for easy export.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

### What you can do with 404 Media data

**📡 Monitor breaking tech news.**

A newsroom sets the Actor to run hourly with a low maxItems value to capture the latest 404 Media articles and feed them into an internal alerting system.

**📚 Build a research corpus.**

An academic researcher runs the Actor with a high maxItems value to collect a year's worth of 404 Media articles for a study on technology journalism.

**📧 Automate newsletter content.**

A newsletter curator schedules the Actor daily to pull the newest 404 Media headlines and summaries, then formats them into a weekly digest.

**🔍 Track topic trends.**

A content marketer collects 404 Media articles over several months and analyzes the full text to identify recurring themes and keywords for their own content strategy.

### Why choose this scraper

| | What you get |
|---|---|
| **No API key required** | Access 404 Media's public feed without registration or authentication. |
| **Full article text** | Get the complete body of each article, not titles or excerpts. |
| **Scalable collection** | Collect up to a million articles in a single run for large-scale analysis. |
| **Multiple export formats** | Save results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML for use in any tool. |

### How it compares

No other Store actor targets 404 Media the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

| | 404 Media Articles Scraper | Build it in-house | By hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Run it now, zero config | Days of engineering | None, but hours per pull |
| When 404 Media changes | Maintained for you | You fix it | You re-learn the page |
| Proxies, retries, anti-bot | Built in | Your problem | Browser only |
| Output | Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export | Whatever you build | Copy-paste |
| Cost | Pay per result | Engineering time | Analyst hours |

### Configure the run

Drive the Actor with a single setting: the maximum number of articles to collect per run. It reads the public feed and returns each article as a flat row. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

```json
{
 "maxItems": 10
}
```

A larger pull:

```json
{
 "maxItems": 200
}
```

### Pricing

Pay-per-result: **$0.021 per result** collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

| Results collected | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| 100 results | $2.10 |
| 1,000 results | $21.00 |
| 10,000 results | $210.00 |

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

### Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. [Upgrade your Apify plan](https://console.apify.com/sign-up) to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

### Run it

1. [Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit](https://console.apify.com/sign-up).
2. Open the [404 Media Articles Scraper](https://apify.com/acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper).
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click **Start**.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the **Dataset** tab.

Run it programmatically through the [Apify API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2) (`run-sync-get-dataset-items`) or the [ApifyClient](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js) for JavaScript and Python.

### Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to 404 Media through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

```bash
claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper"
```

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

### Troubleshooting

**Why am I getting no results?**

Check that the maxItems value is set to at least 1. If the 404 Media site is temporarily unavailable or its feed structure has changed, the Actor may return an empty dataset. Try running it again later.

**Why is the run taking so long?**

A high maxItems value means the Actor must fetch and parse many pages. Reduce maxItems if you only need recent articles, or increase the Actor's memory in the run settings.

**Why are some article fields empty?**

Occasionally, an article may be missing an author or publication date on the source site. The Actor returns whatever is available, so empty fields reflect missing data on 404 Media.

**Can I get articles older than what the feed shows?**

The Actor only reads the public feed, which may be limited to recent articles. For older content, you would need a different approach, such as crawling the site's archive pages, which this Actor does not do.

### FAQ

| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Do I need an API key or login to scrape 404 Media? | No. This Actor reads the public article feed directly, so no authentication or API key is required. |
| What data does each article row include? | Each row includes the article title, URL, author, publication date, and full text. The exact fields are shown in the sample output. |
| How many articles can I collect in one run? | You can set the maximum number of articles from 1 to 1,000,000. The Actor will stop once it reaches that limit or the feed is exhausted. |
| Can I filter articles by topic or author? | This Actor does not support filtering by topic or author. It collects articles from the main feed in chronological order, newest first. |
| How often should I run this Actor? | For monitoring, run it on a schedule, such as hourly or daily. For archival, a single run with a high maxItems value is sufficient. |
| What export formats are supported? | You can export the results as CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform. |
| Is this Actor affiliated with 404 Media? | No, this is an independent scraper built on the Apify platform. It is not endorsed by or affiliated with 404 Media. |
| Can I scrape articles from a specific 404 Media category or tag? | Currently, the Actor only scrapes the main article feed. Category or tag filtering is not supported. |

🆘 **Need help?** Open an issue in the Issues tab of this Actor with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ **Disclaimer.** This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by 404 Media. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.

# Actor input Schema

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

How many articles to collect per run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

No description

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "maxItems": 10
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "maxItems": 10 }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "maxItems": 10
}' |
apify call acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,acquistion-automation/404media-articles-scraper"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/BuhXn3wfr3KBte4QN/builds/KvFjLbKYRN5wUHmqW/openapi.json