# GDELT Global News Monitor - Official API (`slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor`) Actor

Worldwide news search via the official GDELT API - articles from every country across 65+ languages. Filter by date, language, country, tone. Agent-ready pay-per-event pricing.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [SlanLabs](https://apify.com/slanlabs) (community)
- **Categories:** News, AI
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$2.00 / 1,000 articles

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## GDELT Global News Monitor

Search worldwide news coverage through the official GDELT Project DOC 2.0 API - the largest open news-monitoring database on earth. Articles from every country, machine-translated across 65+ languages, updated every 15 minutes. No login, no API key, no scraping.

### Why GDELT

Google News shows you a slice; GDELT shows you the planet. It watches the world's news media in over 65 languages and records who is covering what, where, in what tone - which makes it the standard open source for crisis monitoring, geopolitical research, brand tracking across languages, and media-analysis pipelines. This Actor packages it for agents: one call in, clean article rows out.

### What you get per article

- `title`, `url`, `domain`
- `language`, `sourceCountry`
- `seenAt` - when GDELT first saw the article
- `image` - social image when available

### Inputs

| Field | Required | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `query` | yes | GDELT query syntax: `"exact phrase"`, `OR`, `domain:reuters.com`, `sourcelang:spanish`, `sourcecountry:US` |
| `timespan` | no | `24h`, `7d` (default), `1w`, `3m` - used when no start date is set |
| `startDate` / `endDate` | no | Exact date range; overrides timespan |
| `sort` | no | `datedesc` (default), `hybridrel`, `tonedesc`, `toneasc` |
| `sourceLang` | no | Restrict to a language |
| `sourceCountry` | no | Restrict to a source country |
| `maxResults` | no | Default 100, max 1000 |

### Examples

Global coverage of an election, last 24 hours:

```json
{ "query": "\"presidential election\"", "timespan": "24h", "maxResults": 500 }
```

What the French press writes about AI regulation:

```json
{ "query": "\"AI regulation\"", "sourcelang": "french", "timespan": "7d" }
```

### FAQ

**Is this an official source?** Yes - the GDELT Project's own API. GDELT is an open academic project (Google Jigsaw-backed origins) designed exactly for this kind of analysis.

**Do I need an API key?** No.

**How fresh is the data?** GDELT updates every 15 minutes, around the clock.

**Why does this Actor route through a proxy?** GDELT throttles datacenter IPs hard; the Actor uses Apify residential proxy sessions and rotates them per request for reliability. The tiny proxy cost is absorbed in pricing.

**What does it cost?** Pay-per-event: $2 per 1,000 articles.

**Can I go beyond 250 results?** Yes - the Actor walks the timeline backward automatically with dedupe, up to your `maxResults`.

### Pipeline patterns

**Global brand radar.** A standing query on your brand, product and executive names across all languages, scheduled hourly or daily. GDELT sees coverage you would never catch in English-only monitoring - local press, trade journals, broadcast transcripts.

**Crisis and event tracking.** During a developing situation, `timespan=24h` with `sort=datedesc` gives you the freshest worldwide reporting every run; dedupe on `url`.

**Narrative and tone analysis.** `sort=tonedesc`/`toneasc` surfaces the most positive or most negative coverage first - a quick way to sample framing differences across countries.

**Competitor and market intelligence.** Track product names, regulation topics, or entire industries (`"artificial intelligence" OR "machine learning"`) and let an LLM cluster the weekly output.

### Field notes

`seenAt` is when GDELT first detected the article, not necessarily its publication time - usually within an hour. `language` and `sourceCountry` describe the publisher, so a Spanish-language story from Argentina and one from Spain are distinguishable. GDELT dedupes aggressively at ingest, but syndicated wire stories still appear under multiple domains - cluster on `title` similarity downstream if that matters for your counts.

### More FAQ

**How much history?** GDELT DOC 2.0 reaches back to 2017. Set `startDate`/`endDate` for historical ranges.

**Why did a run return few or no articles?** Narrow queries genuinely have few hits in a short timespan; widen `timespan` or relax quoted phrases. GDELT also rate-limits bursts - the Actor retries and rotates proxies automatically.

**Broadcast and print too?** GDELT covers online news and some broadcast transcripts; it is not a full social-media or print archive.

**Can I combine filters in the query itself?** Yes - the query field accepts GDELT's native operators, so `domain:` and `sourcelang:` can be embedded directly for power use.

**What languages can I query in?** Any - GDELT translates; query in English to match translations, or in the native language.

**Why proxy costs?** Covered in the per-article price; you are not billed separately for the proxy.

### More official-API Actors from SlanLabs

- [App Store Reviews (Official Apple Feeds)](https://apify.com/slanlabs/app-store-reviews) - every public review for any iOS app, any country
- [App Store Top Charts (Official Apple Feeds)](https://apify.com/slanlabs/app-store-top-charts) - live top free, paid and grossing charts for apps, books, podcasts and music
- [Bluesky Scraper - Posts, Profiles, Search](https://apify.com/slanlabs/bluesky-scraper) - posts, profiles, search and threads via the open AT Protocol
- [SEC EDGAR Filings Search & Monitor](https://apify.com/slanlabs/sec-edgar-filings) - full-text search and company feeds from the SEC's official APIs
- [Hacker News Search & Monitor](https://apify.com/slanlabs/hackernews-monitor) - every story and comment since 2006, plus the live front page
- [US Government Spending & Contracts (USASpending)](https://apify.com/slanlabs/usaspending-contracts) - federal contracts, grants and loans by keyword, agency, NAICS or recipient

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

GDELT query. Supports quotes for phrases, OR, domain:cnn.com, sourcelang:english, sourcecountry:US. Example: "artificial intelligence" OR "machine learning"

## `timespan` (type: `string`):

How far back to search when no start date is set: e.g. 24h, 7d, 1w, 3m (m = 30 days).

## `startDate` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only articles first seen on/after this date. Overrides timespan.

## `endDate` (type: `string`):

YYYY-MM-DD. Only articles first seen on/before this date. Defaults to now.

## `sort` (type: `string`):

datedesc = newest first, hybridrel = most relevant, tonedesc/toneasc = by emotional tone.

## `sourceLang` (type: `string`):

Optional. Restrict to a language, e.g. english, spanish, chinese.

## `sourceCountry` (type: `string`):

Optional. Restrict to source country, e.g. US, GB, DE.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Stop after this many articles.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "query": "\"artificial intelligence\" OR \"machine learning\"",
  "timespan": "7d",
  "sort": "datedesc",
  "maxResults": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

GDELT news articles dataset

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Run summary (counts)

# 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 = {
    "query": "\"artificial intelligence\" OR \"machine learning\""
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor").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 = { "query": "\"artificial intelligence\" OR \"machine learning\"" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor").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 '{
  "query": "\\"artificial intelligence\\" OR \\"machine learning\\""
}' |
apify call slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,slanlabs/gdelt-news-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

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/QcmeaXLyRGVaE4I5S/builds/SrmAHyosjwNru7nhe/openapi.json