# Media Cloud, free: News API

> Search Against Media Cloud's new Online News Archive, with access to 200 million+ stories and growing everyday. [...]

Media Cloud's news API on its Default quota (4000 API requests per week) plan. It costs $0.00 per 1,000 searches. It returns 2 of the 6 key fields we check: Source, Date.
We haven't run Media Cloud through [our news API benchmark](https://datacircle.dev/best-news-api.txt) yet.
This plan is free. We rank 710 plans for news APIs by price. Half the plans cost $1.00 per 1,000 searches or less.
[Financial Data (financialdata.net)'s $69 monthly plan](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/financial-data-financialdata-net/69-monthly-premium-get-api-v1-latest-news/llms.txt) is the cheapest paid plan per 1,000 searches: as little as $0.00089. Financial Data (financialdata.net)'s $69 monthly plan covers up to 77,760,000 searches a month at no extra cost.
[Finage's $49 monthly plan (/news/cryptocurrency/{symbol})](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/finage/49-monthly-simple-plan-get-news-cryptocurrency-symbol/llms.txt) covers any number of searches. Finage's $49 monthly plan costs less up front than Financial Data (financialdata.net)'s $69 monthly plan.
[The New York Times](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/the-new-york-times/free/llms.txt), [Scrappa](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/scrappa/25-pack/llms.txt) and [SerpScraper.dev](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/serpscraper-dev/39-monthly/llms.txt) are the best news API providers in the Datacircle benchmark.

- This page: https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/media-cloud/free
- [News API: 60+ providers compared on price and data](https://datacircle.dev/best-news-api.txt)
- Get it: https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/faqs?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- Request: `GET https://search.mediacloud.org/api/search/story-list`
- API key: with the plan, on https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/faqs?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- Its API docs: https://github.com/mediacloud/api-client?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing#page-through-stories-matching-a-query
- Sold by: Media Cloud (https://www.mediacloud.org?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing)
- Checked: 2026-11-04

## In the answer

- Completeness: 33%
- Source: ✓
- Date: ✓

## Price

- $ per 1,000 searches: $0.00
- Per: page, size not stated
- Billing: free

## Charges

- Also pays for: from the same budget: search/total-count · search/count-over-time · search/count-by-source-week · search/count-by-source-over-interval · search/sample · search/story · search/words · search/sources · search/languages

## Not found

- $ per 1,000: $0.00

## In their words

- Their pitch: Search Against Media Cloud's new Online News Archive, with access to 200 million+ stories and growing everyday. [...]

## Data

- Keep data: no limit
- Use data: "You may use the Platform for any lawful use, subject to the limitations outlined in these Terms of Use and Section 2.4, and with the knowledge that the Platform is designed for and is best fitted to academic, nonprofit, and journalistic research and not designed for use as a commercial tool for, e.g., market and brand research.", "“Platform Outputs” include aggregated data and/or analyses produced by the Platform (e.g. “number of media mentions in 2019,” “related words in media mentions”) and images generated by the Platform (e.g. charts, “word clouds”). You may use, reproduce, distribute, and/or display any Platform Outputs, including directly copying them.", "We highly recommend, but do not require, that you attribute Media Cloud when using, reproducing, distributing, and/or displaying any Platform Outputs.", "In contrast to Platform Outputs, which you can use freely, Media Cloud does not own the content (e.g. news stories, blogs) of third-party sources analyzed by or linked to by the Platform. MEDIA CLOUD CANNOT AND DOES NOT GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO USE, REPRODUCE, DISTRIBUTE, AND/OR DISPLAY ANY THIRD-PARTY CONTENT. If you choose to use, reproduce, distribute, and/or display that content, you must do so in accordance with the intellectual property rights and/or terms of use of the relevant third-party source(s).", Limitations on Use: "You may not use the Platform to infringe on or violate the intellectual property rights, privacy rights, publicity rights or any other rights of any person or entity." "You may not use an unreasonable amount of bandwidth or exceed any API request limit." "You may not make multiple accounts in order to circumvent the API request limit." "You may not post material to the Platform that advertises or sells a product or service or functions as spam." "You may not impede or interfere with others’ use of the Platform, intentionally disrupt, attack, modify, or interfere with the proper working of the Platform in any way, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to Media Cloud’s servers by any means." "You may not use the Platform in connection with spyware, malware, or other malicious programs or code." "You may not sell, lease or sublicense the Media Cloud Platform, any Media Cloud API key, or access thereto."

## Plan

- Pay: $0
- You get: 4,000 requests
- Enough for: 4,000 pages

## Rate limit

- Batch: 1

## Speed

- Answer: in the call

## The call

- You send: q, start, end. Optional: platform, ss, cs, expanded, pagination_token, sort_order, page_size
- Method: GET
- Path: /search/story-list

## About the plan

- Plan: Default quota (4000 API requests per week)
- Who can get it: anyone who creates a Media Cloud account and is 13 years or older, the platform is designed for and best fitted to academic, nonprofit, and journalistic research, not as a commercial tool for e.g. market and brand research

## The 9 fields the plan's answer can hold

story ID, title, URL, language, source name, source URL, published date, indexed date, pagination token

## Media Cloud's plans (1)

- [Media Cloud, free](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/media-cloud/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 33% complete

## Media Cloud's calls (1)

- `GET /search/story-list`: [Media Cloud, free](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/media-cloud/free/llms.txt)

## Media Cloud's APIs (1)

- [Media Cloud: news API pricing, 1 plan](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/media-cloud/free/llms.txt)

## Media Cloud: news API alternatives

- [The New York Times, free](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/the-new-york-times/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 83% complete
- [Scrappa, free, GET /api/google/news](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/scrappa/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 67% complete, live
- [SerpScraper.dev, free](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/serpscraper-dev/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 67% complete
- [ReefAPI, free, POST /news-intel/v1/search](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/reefapi/free-post-news-intel-v1-search/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 67% complete, live
- [GroundRoute, free](https://datacircle.dev/news-apis/groundroute/free/llms.txt): $0.00 per 1,000, 50% complete, 5 minutes

## Sources

From each provider's own pricing page and docs, and from what providers tell us. We read this row from these pages on 2026-11-04.

- https://github.com/mediacloud/api-client?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mediacloud/api-client/main/mediacloud/api.py?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mediacloud/api-client/main/mediacloud/types.py?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/faqs?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/query-guide?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/search-api-guide?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://www.mediacloud.org/documentation/story-guide?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing
- https://www.mediacloud.org/legal/media-cloud-terms-of-use?utm_source=datacircle.dev&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=news-api-pricing