Journalist Requests Scraper - #journorequest Media Requests

Find open journalist requests for expert sources (#journorequest): run it and you get every open request posted on Bluesky in the last 30 days, each with its deadline when the post states one, a section, who is asking, and your topics matched and ranked first. Switch on the UK Parliament, GOV.UK and US Federal Register lists and you also get open calls for expert evidence, with their real closing dates.

The honest part first: journalists post only a handful of requests a day under these tags. Across all of Bluesky we counted 6 in one full day of posts (27 Oct 2026), and most came from services that relay requests and link to their own site. A run gives you days or weeks of requests, not hundreds a day.

Input	Nothing required. Optionally your topics, sections, countries and sources
Output	One row per open request: title, full text, link, deadline, days left, section, who is asking, your matched topics
Ceiling	2,000 requests per run
Speed	1 to 3 seconds a run in our tests, every source together included
Account needed	None from you
Price	$1.70 per 1,000 requests, flat on every plan. The free plan's $5 a month covers about 2,900

Using an AI agent?
Actor	dami_studio/journalist-requests-scraper
Set one field	keywords, labelled "Your topics" in the Console
Cap the bill	maxTotalChargeUsd on the run, for example 0.10: it never charges past that
MCP, one link	https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dami_studio/journalist-requests-scraper
How often	Daily, with onlyNewRequests on, so each morning brings only requests you have not seen

🔍 What Journalist Requests Scraper does

It reads the public #journorequest and #prrequest posts on Bluesky, keeps the ones from the last 30 days, and turns each into a row you can sort and filter. A post's own words decide its section, the deadline (only when the post names one, such as "Deadline 28 Oct, 17:00" or "by Friday") and who is asking. Requests that mention one of your topics are tagged in matchedKeywords and come first, then the rest by soonest deadline.

Mastodon is there too, but its request tags have been quiet since September 2026, so it is off unless you tick it.

The three government sources are a different kind of request. UK Parliament committees asking for written evidence, GOV.UK consultations and US Federal Register requests for information all want expert input by a fixed date. They are not journalists, so they are off by default, but a published response with your name on it is the kind of thing some people answer journalist requests to get.

Each post is fetched fresh on every run, so a request its author has deleted is gone from your results too.

📋 What data you get from each journalist request

What you want	Field
The request	title, summary (the full text)
Where to answer it	url
Deadline	deadline (UTC), deadlineText (as written), daysLeft, isOpen
Who is asking	requesterName, requesterType, outlet (only when named plainly)
Topic	industry (one of twelve sections), matchedKeywords
Where it came from	source, authorHandle, authorUrl, datePosted, language, country
For scheduled runs	isNew
Licence line on government rows	attribution

▶️ How to scrape journalist requests

1. Open the actor and press Try for free.
2. Type the subjects you can speak on into Your topics, for example pensions or cybersecurity.
3. Leave Where to look on Bluesky, or tick the government lists as well.
4. Press Start. Open the Output tab and the Requests view.
5. To get a fresh list every morning, schedule it daily with Only new requests switched on.

💰 How much does it cost to scrape journalist requests?

$1.70 per 1,000 requests, the same on the Free, Starter, Scale and Business plans, plus $0.00005 when a run starts. The free plan's $5 a month covers about 2,900 requests. Requests left out by your filters are not charged, and neither are the note rows that say a source did not answer or nothing matched.

📥 What you give it

Field	What it does	Default
keywords	Your topics. Matches are tagged and listed first. A single word also matches plain endings: finance finds "financial"	none
keywordsOnly	Leave out requests that match none of your topics	false
excludeKeywords	Leave out requests that mention any of these	none
onlyOpenDeadlines	Hide requests past their deadline. A post with no stated deadline counts as open for 30 days	true
maxAgeDays	Only requests posted in the last this many days	no limit
maxRequests	Stop after this many	200
sources	bluesky, mastodon, uk_parliament, gov_uk, us_federal_register	["bluesky"]
industries	Keep only these sections	all
countries	Keep only requests about these countries	all
onlyNewRequests	Only requests not returned to you before	false

{
  "keywords": ["pensions", "personal finance"],
  "sources": ["bluesky", "gov_uk"],
  "onlyOpenDeadlines": true,
  "maxRequests": 200
}

📤 What you get back

One full row from a run on 28 Oct 2026. A Bluesky row has the same fields, with authorHandle and authorUrl filled and attribution empty.

{
  "source": "GOV.UK",
  "requestId": "gov-uk:/government/consultations/land-use-statistics-in-england-methodology-changes",
  "title": "Consultation: Land use statistics in England: methodology changes",
  "summary": "We are seeking views on a new methodology for the collection of MHCLG's land use statistics for England.",
  "url": "https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/land-use-statistics-in-england-methodology-changes",
  "industry": "General",
  "requesterName": "Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government",
  "requesterType": "Government consultation",
  "country": "United Kingdom",
  "datePosted": "2026-09-16T09:00:00.000Z",
  "deadline": "2026-10-28T23:59:00.000Z",
  "deadlineText": "Closes 2026-10-28",
  "daysLeft": 0,
  "isOpen": true,
  "matchedKeywords": [],
  "isNew": false,
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0."
}

Field	Read it like this
deadline	UTC. On a post it is the day the post names, end of day when no time is given. A time in the post is taken as written, since posts rarely say which time zone
daysLeft	Whole days to the deadline; 0 means it closes today. Empty when no deadline is stated
summary	E-mail addresses and phone numbers in a post are replaced with "[e-mail in the original post]". The link takes you to the post itself
requesterType	Journalist, Podcaster, Blogger, Author, PR Pro, or Request service for accounts that relay requests and link to their own site. Read from the post and the poster's profile
outlet	Filled only when the post names the publication plainly, such as "for Newsweek features". Often empty
isNew	Whether this request was returned to your account before

🧾 Reading the output

A real request row has no _diagnostic field. A note row has _diagnostic: true, costs nothing, and carries a status:

status	Meaning
NO_RESULTS	Nothing was found, or your filters left everything out. leftOut counts the reasons
NOT_SERVED	One source did not answer this run. The others still came back
TIME_LIMIT	The run's time limit came first; sourcesNotFinished names what was left
COST_LIMIT	The maximum cost you set for the run was reached
BAD_INPUT	No source was picked

To keep only requests, filter out rows where _diagnostic is true.

💡 What people use it for

• An expert or a founder who wants to be quoted: put your subjects in keywords, schedule it daily with onlyNewRequests, and read the morning's list over coffee.
• A PR team answering requests for several clients: one task per client, each with its own keywords, sent to a sheet.
• A consultancy that answers government consultations: tick gov_uk and uk_parliament, filter by industries, and sort by deadline.

A recipe that chains three of our actors: run this one on your subjects, open the url of each matched request, then run Google News Scraper on the same subject to see what that outlet and others have already published before you pitch.

🚧 What it does not do

• It is not a high-volume feed. The public request tags carry a handful of posts a day, and most come from services that relay requests.
• No contact details. Addresses and numbers in a post are masked; you answer through the post or the link in it.
• No X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Facebook or Reddit requests, and no request boards that need an account.
• Sections and requester types are read from the words, so a mixed request can land in the wrong section.
• Most posts name no country, so the countries filter leaves most posts out.
• It is not an official Bluesky, Mastodon, UK Parliament, GOV.UK or Federal Register tool. Dami's Studio is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bluesky, Mastodon, UK Parliament, GOV.UK or the Federal Register, or by any other company named on this page.

🧭 Which scraper do you need?

If you want	Use
Open journalist requests and calls for evidence	This one
Any keyword on Bluesky, or a person's posts	Bluesky Scraper
Hashtags and accounts on Mastodon	Mastodon Scraper
What the press has already written on a subject	Google News Scraper
Newsletter posts from a Substack publication	Substack Scraper

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a Bluesky account to get journalist requests?

No. You don't need a Bluesky or Mastodon account. It reads public posts the way a signed-out visitor sees them.

Why is a request I saw on Bluesky not in my results?

Either it was posted without one of the request tags, its deadline has passed (or it is over 30 days old with none stated), or your filters left it out. The NO_RESULTS note row counts what each filter removed.

How do I get only new requests each day?

Schedule a daily run with Only new requests on. The ids it returned are kept in a store named journalist-requests-seen in your own account; delete that store to start over.

Can I call it from code or connect it to an AI assistant?

The API tab has code for Python, JavaScript and the CLI. MCP clients like Claude and ChatGPT use https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dami_studio/journalist-requests-scraper. Both bill your Apify account at the same price.

# pip install apify-client
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("dami_studio/journalist-requests-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "keywords": ["pension", "health"],
        "maxRequests": 40,
    },
    max_total_charge_usd=0.10,  # the most this run may spend
)
for row in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    if row.get("ok") is False:  # free note rows, not requests
        continue
    print(row["deadline"], row["title"], row["url"])

Is scraping journalist requests legal?

The posts are public and read without an account, and nothing private is collected. They still carry personal data, such as the poster's name and handle, so GDPR and similar laws apply to what you keep, and the rules on unsolicited contact apply to how you reply. Each site's own terms apply to what you do with the rows. Apify's write-up on the legality of web scraping is a good start, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the input you used and the run ID, and the status of any note row.