# SA News Headline Collector (News24) (`loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector`) Actor

Latest South African news headlines from News24 RSS feeds as structured JSON.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector.md
- **Developed by:** [Armand Oberholzer](https://apify.com/loopwalker-owner) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Automation
- **Stats:** 3 total users, 2 monthly users, 92.5% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.20 / 1,000 headline results

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?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## South Africa News Headline Collector (News24)

### What does this actor do?

It collects the **latest South African news headlines** from [News24](https://www.news24.com)'s public RSS feeds into clean, structured JSON: title, link, summary, and publish time. Point it at any News24 section feed (Top Stories, South Africa, Business, Sport, ...), schedule it on Apify, and you have a continuously updated ZA news dataset with API access, webhooks, and integrations — no feed-parsing code on your side.

### Why use it?

- **Media monitoring**: track coverage of a company, person, or topic in ZA media.
- **Sentiment & research pipelines**: a stable JSON feed for NLP workflows.
- **Newsletters & dashboards**: always-fresh headline blocks without manual curation.

### How to use it

1. Keep the default feeds or paste other News24 section RSS URLs.
2. Run or schedule the actor (e.g. every 30 minutes).
3. Consume the dataset via UI download or the Apify API.

### Input

```json
{
  "feeds": ["https://feeds.capi24.com/v1/Search/articles/news24/topstories/rss"],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 50
}
```

### Output

```json
{
  "source": "https://feeds.capi24.com/v1/Search/articles/news24/topstories/rss",
  "channel": "News24 news24/topstories/rss",
  "title": "Example headline about South Africa",
  "link": "https://www.news24.com/politics/example-article",
  "description": "One-paragraph summary as published in the feed.",
  "pubDate": "Saturday Jul 25 2026 16:23:07",
  "collectedAt": "2026-07-25T18:00:00.000Z"
}
```

You can download the dataset in JSON, CSV, or Excel formats.

| Field | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `title` / `link` | Headline and canonical article URL |
| `description` | Feed-provided summary (not the full article) |
| `pubDate` | Publish time as given by the feed |
| `channel` | Feed title (section name) |

### Automate it: Tasks + scheduling (recommended)

News is a stream — schedule the actor and treat the dataset as your feed:

1. Click **Create task** and save your feed list.
2. Set the **Schedule** to every 30–60 minutes for near-real-time coverage.
3. Dedupe on `link` across runs to build a clean rolling archive for monitoring or NLP.
4. Use **Integrations** to stream new headlines into Slack, a webhook, or straight into your pipeline via the API.

Pro pattern: one task per beat — "topstories", "business", "politics" — each with its own cadence and destination.

### Pricing

Pay-per-event: a small flat fee per run plus a fraction of a cent per headline. A half-hourly schedule typically costs a few cents per day.

### Disclaimers & support

This actor consumes RSS feeds News24 publishes for exactly this purpose and stores only headline metadata — never full article text (copyright stays with the publisher). No personal data is collected. Questions or breakage: Issues tab, answered within the Apify 14-day SLA.

# Actor input Schema

## `feeds` (type: `array`):

News24 (capi24) RSS feed URLs to collect. Defaults to Top Stories + South Africa.

## `maxItemsPerFeed` (type: `integer`):

Cap on headlines collected per feed (1-200).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feeds": [
    "https://feeds.capi24.com/v1/Search/articles/news24/topstories/rss",
    "https://feeds.capi24.com/v1/Search/articles/news24/southafrica/rss"
  ],
  "maxItemsPerFeed": 50
}
```

# 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 = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector").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 = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector").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 '{}' |
apify call loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,loopwalker-owner/news24-headline-collector"
        }
    }
}

```

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/GAXMPTFIydcWrF14b/builds/xntkaSzV8gc1bjlZT/openapi.json