Journalist Requests Scraper – #JournoRequest & HARO Alternative

A test run with the default input (last 14 days, Bluesky and Mastodon) returns about 55 requests and costs about $0.11 ($0.002 per result, plus a $0.00005 start fee; capped at 100 results, about $0.20). Apify's free plan includes monthly platform credit.

Journalist Requests Scraper collects fresh journalist source requests, #journorequest posts, #PRrequest / #mediarequest call-outs and (optionally) podcast guest requests into one clean, deduplicated dataset. Each row gives you the request text, outlet, journalist name and handle, topic tags, deadline, posted date and source link, so you can pitch the right journalists before the deadline.

It's a HARO alternative for digital PR, link building and founder-led PR. No HARO/Connectively, Qwoted, Featured or SourceBottle account is needed, and no login, no cookies, no proxy are used: the Actor reads only public, documented APIs and the public RSS feeds you choose.

What can this journalist request scraper do?

• One feed of media requests from Bluesky (most volume) and Mastodon hashtag timelines, plus any public RSS/Atom feed you add.
• Normalized records: title, requestText, outlet, journalistName, journalistHandle, topicTags, deadline, postedAt, sourceUrl.
• Deadline parsing: "Deadline 24 Oct, 12:00", "by Friday 5pm", "today", "ASAP" → ISO deadline, deadlineText, isUrgent, isExpired.
• Outlet detection: "writing for Brewer & Distiller", "wanted for The i Paper", "(The Guardian)" → outlet.
• 17 auto topic tags (business & finance, health, tech, travel, food & drink, home & property, parenting, career, marketing & PR, environment, legal & politics, science, entertainment, case studies, products & gift guides, podcast guests…).
• Deduplication within a run (same post found via several hashtags or instances, aggregator double-posts, cross-posted text) and across runs with Only new requests since last run.
• Filters: keywords, topic categories, since-date (absolute or relative such as 3 days), hide expired, genuine-requests-only, exclude replies, exclude aggregator re-posts.
• No free-tier holdbacks: every result you pay for is the latest one, with no 25-row cap or 48-hour delay.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free.
2. Add the keywords you can speak about (e.g. cybersecurity, personal finance, SaaS) or pick topic categories, or leave both empty to see everything.
3. Choose Posted since (default: last 14 days) and Max results.
4. Click Start. The default run takes under a minute.
5. Open the Requests view, or the Pitch queue view for the full text and reply links.
6. For a daily alert: create a Schedule, turn on Only new requests since last run, and connect Slack, email, Google Sheets, Zapier, Make or n8n through Apify integrations.

Input example

{
  "keywords": ["finance", "retirement", "landlord"],
  "categories": [],
  "maxResults": 100,
  "sinceDate": "7 days",
  "hideExpired": true,
  "sources": ["bluesky", "mastodon"],
  "hashtags": ["journorequest", "journorequests", "prrequest", "mediarequest", "sourcerequest"],
  "includePodcastGuestRequests": false,
  "mastodonInstances": ["mastodon.social", "journa.host"],
  "rssFeedUrls": [],
  "onlyNewSinceLastRun": true
}

Input	What it does
keywords	Keep requests mentioning any keyword. Matches go to matchedKeywords.
categories	Keep requests with at least one of these auto topic tags.
maxResults	Max requests returned, newest first.
sinceDate	YYYY-MM-DD or relative (24 hours, 3 days, 2 weeks).
hideExpired	Drop requests whose parsed deadline has passed.
onlyLikelyRequests	Skip hashtag posts that aren't requests (press releases, jokes). On by default.
excludeAggregators	Hide accounts that re-post requests from other platforms.
excludeReplies	Skip thread replies. On by default.
sources	bluesky, mastodon, rss.
hashtags	Hashtags to search (without #).
includePodcastGuestRequests	Adds #podcastguest, #podcastguests, #guestrequest.
mastodonInstances	Mastodon servers whose public hashtag timelines are read.
rssFeedUrls	Your own public RSS/Atom feeds of requests or newsletter archives.
onlyNewSinceLastRun / stateStoreName	Cross-run dedupe for schedules.

Output example

One item per request. Download as JSON, CSV, Excel, HTML or XML, or use the API.

{
  "requestId": "bluesky:eb6e64c8be103e03",
  "title": "Ski helmet buying tips and new products for Snow Show piece (PTMollie.com).",
  "requestText": "Ski helmet buying tips and new products for Snow Show piece (PTMollie.com). Deadline 18 Oct, 0:59.\n\n#JournoRequest — the brief and how to reply: https://www.thesourceradar.com/r/cmv9go8l1000y89didwgz4iox",
  "outlet": "PTMollie.com",
  "journalistName": null,
  "journalistHandle": "@thesourceradar.bsky.social",
  "journalistProfileUrl": "https://bsky.app/profile/thesourceradar.bsky.social",
  "isAggregatorPost": true,
  "topicTags": ["travel-leisure", "products-reviews"],
  "matchedKeywords": [],
  "hashtags": ["journorequest"],
  "deadline": "2026-10-18T00:59:00.000Z",
  "deadlineText": "Deadline 18 Oct, 0:59",
  "isUrgent": false,
  "isExpired": true,
  "postedAt": "2026-10-16T11:30:22.955Z",
  "sourceUrl": "https://bsky.app/profile/thesourceradar.bsky.social/post/3mxyhyr3wbc2l",
  "replyLinks": ["https://www.thesourceradar.com/r/cmv9go8l1000y89didwgz4iox"],
  "source": "bluesky",
  "sourceName": "Bluesky",
  "matchedHashtag": "journorequest",
  "language": "en",
  "engagement": { "likes": 0, "reposts": 1, "replies": 0 },
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-19T18:37:16.278Z"
}

{
  "title": "I'm looking for international stories (for a British paper) with lines on: -migration -overtourism -in-depth, expert-led analysis (with…",
  "outlet": "a British paper",
  "journalistName": "Lauren Crosby Medlicott",
  "journalistHandle": "@laurenmedlicott.bsky.social",
  "topicTags": ["travel-leisure", "legal-politics"],
  "deadline": null,
  "postedAt": "2026-10-15T15:33:06.128Z",
  "sourceUrl": "https://bsky.app/profile/laurenmedlicott.bsky.social/post/3mxwf3tut622n"
}

The key-value store record SUMMARY shows how many posts were fetched per source and how many were removed as duplicates, non-requests or by your filters.

Sources and why they're allowed

Source	How it's accessed	Why it's allowed
Bluesky	Official public AppView API api.bsky.app/xrpc/app.bsky.feed.searchPosts (no account)	Bluesky's robots.txt points automated readers to its API and allows crawling. The ToS and Developer Guidelines prohibit spam, not reading public posts. This Actor only reads posts and never posts, likes or messages.
Mastodon	Each instance's public REST API /api/v1/timelines/tag/{tag} (defaults: mastodon.social, journa.host)	This is a public, unauthenticated, documented API. robots.txt doesn't disallow it. Only public posts are read. Posts mirrored from X/Twitter and Bluesky bridges are skipped.
RSS/Atom (optional)	Only feed URLs that you supply	You choose the feeds. Only add feeds whose terms allow automated reading.

Not used, on purpose: HARO/Connectively, Qwoted, Featured, Help a B2B Writer/MentionMatch, Muck Rack, ResponseSource and other logged-in or paywalled platforms. SourceBottle is also excluded because its terms forbid reproducing or commercially exploiting its content. X/Twitter is excluded because X data may only be accessed through X's official paid API. Some posts on Bluesky are re-posted by aggregator accounts. They are flagged with isAggregatorPost and can be excluded.

Tips and notes

• Journalists rarely put a deadline in social posts, so deadline is often null. Social requests usually go stale within a week or two, so use sinceDate to keep it fresh.
• Deadlines without a timezone are read as UTC (most #journorequest posters are UK-based).
• Outlet and topic detection are rule-based and best-effort. The full requestText is always included.
• Please pitch responsibly: reply only when you're a genuine fit. Don't add journalists to mailing lists.
• Not affiliated with Bluesky, Mastodon, HARO, or any outlet.

Pricing

Pay per result: $2.00 per 1,000 requests delivered (result event), plus Apify's tiny actor-start fee. Duplicates, filtered-out posts and requests skipped by Only new requests are not charged. A daily run with keyword filters usually costs a few cents.

Use from an AI agent

You can give this Actor to an AI agent as a tool through the Apify MCP server (https://mcp.apify.com), from Claude, Cursor, VS Code and other MCP clients. Add the server with only this Actor loaded:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=monriah-studio/journalist-requests"
    }
  }
}

On first connection your browser opens to sign in to Apify (OAuth). Or add "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>" } to use your API token instead. Then ask your agent something like "Find journalist requests about fintech from the last two weeks".

You can also call it directly via the Apify API, for example to run it and get the results in one request:

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/monriah-studio~journalist-requests/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "keywords": ["fintech"],
  "sinceDate": "14 days",
  "maxResults": 50
}'

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