Company
Date Published
Author
Antonello Zanini
Word count
2271
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

A news scraper is an automated tool designed to extract information from news websites, capturing details like headlines, publication dates, authors, and article content. It can be built using AI or custom scripts, each with its own benefits and challenges. AI models can work across various sites and automate the data extraction process, but they might be costly and less controllable. In contrast, custom scripts offer greater control and cost efficiency but require technical expertise and maintenance for each site. News scraping can be complex due to anti-bot measures employed by websites, requiring strategies like CAPTCHA bypassing or using advanced tools like Playwright Stealth. Alternatively, dedicated News Scraper APIs provide a reliable way to collect structured data from major news sources without dealing with infrastructure or blocking issues. These APIs allow users to extract comprehensive data from platforms such as CNN, BBC, and Reuters, and pre-compiled datasets are available for those who prefer not to build their own scrapers.