News Monitor MCP Server

🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

📰 news-monitor-mcp

MCP server for global news monitoring, media analysis and sentiment tracking via WorldNewsAPI — full-text search across 150+ countries, German/English sentiment analysis, top headlines, GL briefings, newspaper front pages and geo-search. API key required.

🇩🇪 Deutsche Version

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Overview

news-monitor-mcp transforms any AI assistant into a proactive media intelligence agent. The server connects LLMs like Claude with global news data: from Swiss institutional reputation monitoring to weekly leadership briefings and trend detection across categories.

Source: WorldNewsAPI (worldnewsapi.com) — the only freely available news API with German-language sentiment analysis.

API key required. Get a free key at worldnewsapi.com/console — free plan: 50 points/day, no credit card, backlink to worldnewsapi.com required (checked 2026-08-14).

Anchor demo query: "How has the Schulamt Zürich been portrayed in the media over the last 30 days, and what is the overall sentiment?"

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Features

• 🔍 Full-text search – 150+ countries, 50+ languages, Boolean queries and exact phrase matching
• 📊 Sentiment analysis – German and English only (WorldNewsAPI unique feature); scores from −1 (negative) to +1 (positive)
• 📰 Top headlines – clustered by country and language, ranked by number of sources reporting
• 📋 Media briefing – multi-topic weekly report with sentiment overview for GL / leadership updates
• 🗞️ Newspaper front pages – digital covers from 6,000+ publications in 125 countries
• 📡 Trend radar – category-based trend detection (politics, technology, education, …) per country
• 📍 Geo-search – location-specific news (Zürich, Bern, Basel, Kanton Zürich, …)
• ☁️ Dual transport – stdio for Claude Desktop, Streamable HTTP for cloud deployment

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Demo

"Create a media briefing for: AI in education, Volksschule Zürich, school digitalisation"

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Data Sources

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Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• uv or pip
• API key from worldnewsapi.com/console (free tier available)

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Installation

# Recommended: uvx (no install step needed)
uvx news-monitor-mcp

# Alternative: pip
pip install news-monitor-mcp

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Quickstart

# Start the server (stdio mode for Claude Desktop)
WORLD_NEWS_API_KEY=your-key uvx news-monitor-mcp

Try it immediately in Claude Desktop:

"Show me the top news from Switzerland today" "How is the Schulamt Zürich covered in German-language media this month?" "Create a media briefing on: Volksschule Zürich, AI in education, school digitalisation"

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Configuration

Environment Variables

Claude Desktop Configuration

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news-monitor": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["news-monitor-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "WORLD_NEWS_API_KEY": "your-api-key-here"
      }
    }
  }
}

Config file locations:

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

After restarting Claude Desktop, all tools are available. Example queries:

• "Show me the top Swiss news today"
• "What is the media sentiment on AI in education this month?"
• "Create a weekly briefing for: Schulamt Zürich, Volksschule, KI Bildung"
• "Find all German-language articles about school digitalisation in the last 14 days"
• "Show me the front pages of Swiss newspapers today"

Cloud Deployment (Streamable HTTP)

For use via claude.ai in the browser (e.g. on managed workstations without local software):

Authentication is mandatory. The HTTP transport refuses any request without a valid Authorization: Bearer <token> header. Generate a token once and keep it secret:

python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))"

Render.com (recommended):

1. Push/fork the repository to GitHub
2. On render.com: New Web Service → connect GitHub repo
3. Set the following environment variables in the Render dashboard:
   • WORLD_NEWS_API_KEY — your WorldNewsAPI key
   • MCP_BEARER_TOKEN — the token generated above
   • MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 — bind on all interfaces inside the container
   • MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://claude.ai (optional, recommended)
4. In claude.ai under Settings → MCP Servers, add the URL https://your-app.onrender.com/mcp and configure the Bearer token as the auth header.

# Local HTTP mode (binds 127.0.0.1 by default)
WORLD_NEWS_API_KEY=your-key \
  MCP_BEARER_TOKEN=$(python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))") \
  news-monitor-mcp --http --port 8000

# Verify auth is enforced
curl -i http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp                                  # → 401
curl -i -H "Authorization: Bearer $MCP_BEARER_TOKEN" http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

Scaling notes

This server is currently single-process / single-replica:

• The TTL cache lives in process memory (NewsCache). If you run multiple Render or Kubernetes replicas, each replica has its own cache — hit-rates drop linearly with the replica count.
• Alerts persist to a local alerts.json (defaults to /data inside the container). Multiple replicas mounting the same persistent volume serialize via fcntl.flock, but for true cluster operation a shared store (Redis / Postgres) is needed — see the open finding SCALE-STATEFUL.
• On Render Free Tier, the container sleeps after ~15 minutes of inactivity and loses non-persistent state. Attach a Persistent Disk for /data if you need alerts to survive restarts. For Render Free + alerts you must accept that the cache is lost on every wake-up.

The MCP_CACHE_MAX_PER_TYPE cap (default 1000 entries / type) and the background sweep (MCP_CACHE_SWEEP_SECONDS, default 5 min) prevent the in-process cache from growing without bound.

Container image

A non-root multi-stage Dockerfile is included and built on every CI run. Inside the container the server defaults to --http, binds 0.0.0.0:8000, persists alerts under /data, and refuses to start if MCP_BEARER_TOKEN is missing.

docker build -t news-monitor-mcp .

docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e WORLD_NEWS_API_KEY=your-key \
  -e MCP_BEARER_TOKEN=$(python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))") \
  -e MCP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS=https://claude.ai \
  -v news-monitor-data:/data \
  news-monitor-mcp

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Architecture

┌─────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐    ┌──────────────────────────┐
│  Claude / AI    │────▶│   News Monitor MCP        │────▶│   WorldNewsAPI           │
│  (MCP Host)     │◀────│   (MCP Server)            │◀────│   REST JSON API          │
└─────────────────┘    │                            │    │   150+ countries         │
                       │  9 Tools                   │    │   50+ languages          │
                       │  Stdio | Streamable HTTP   │    │   Sentiment DE/EN        │
                       └──────────────────────────┘    └──────────────────────────┘

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Project Structure

news-monitor-mcp/
├── src/
│   └── news_monitor_mcp/
│       ├── __init__.py
│       └── server.py          # All 9 tools
├── tests/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── test_server.py         # 20 tests (unit + live)
├── pyproject.toml
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── CONTRIBUTING.md
├── LICENSE
├── README.md                  # This file (English)
└── README.de.md               # German version

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MCP Protocol Version

This server speaks two protocol eras over the same endpoint. The client's first request on a connection decides which one applies; a later claim from the other era is refused.

Both revisions are pinned in tests/test_protocol_version.py and asserted against the installed SDK, so a Dependabot bump of mcp cannot move either one silently. The handshake ceiling is measured against a live initialize through the assembled ASGI stack, not read off a constant name.

Note that the SDK's LATEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION is an alias for the modern era, not for the handshake era — pinning against it alone would leave the era that current clients actually negotiate free to drift.

Update policy. When the gate fails, do not edit the constant blindly: read the spec changelog between the two revisions, verify the server still behaves, then move the constant, this section, README.de.md and CHANGELOG.md together.

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Testing

# Unit + contract tests (no network) — this is what CI runs
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -m "not live"

# Live tests. The route check needs no key; the data tests skip without one.
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -m "live"

# Re-record the route inventory (writes tests/fixtures/ + PROVENANCE.md)
PYTHONPATH=src python scripts/record_fixtures.py

181 tests — 174 offline, 7 live (2 of which need no API key).

The live tests run daily at 06:17 UTC via .github/workflows/live-tests.yml, not on push: they measure the source, which changes independently of this repo.

Three live tests never ran

Until 2026-08-08 the repo's three live tests carried @pytest.mark.live but no @pytest.mark.asyncio. Under pytest-asyncio's strict default that does not mean "skipped" — it means async def functions are not natively supported. They never executed, and anyone running -m live got three errors that said nothing about the source. CI excludes -m live, so nothing reported it.

asyncio_mode = "auto" now makes a forgotten marker unable to cause this.

And running would not have shown much either:

assert "Volksschule" in result or "Ergebnisse" in result

The second branch matches the tool's own results heading, so the disjunction could not fail. assert "Top-Schlagzeilen" in result and assert "Sentiment" in result likewise matched only the template. All three now assert something that can fail, and they skip rather than fail when no key is set — "red" should mean something is wrong, not that you have no key.

What is verified without a key, and what is not

tests/fixtures/api_routen.json records, for each of the five paths the tools build, the status code and content type measured without a key. The gateway routes before authenticating:

So a 401 means "this route exists". Without the control it would only mean "I got a 401" — and that is not a given: epl.bag.admin.ch elsewhere in this portfolio answers 401 for invented paths too. The recorder therefore re-measures the control on every run and aborts if it stops discriminating.

Still open, and marked as such in PROVENANCE.md: whether the query parameter names the server sends are correct. The API answers 401 regardless of parameters, so no key means no verification. In global-education-mcp in this same portfolio exactly that went wrong — two filters were silently inert because unknown parameters were answered with HTTP 200 and dropped. That check is outstanding, not done.

Empty result vs. changed response shape

data.get("news", []) answers two entirely different cases the same way: "the source found nothing" and "the source answers differently than we assume". The second becomes "0 results" — complete, plausible, formatted and wrong. That is not hypothetical: in global-education-mcp the envelope had been renamed, so every answer came back empty while 128 tests stayed green.

articles_of() now reads the envelope. An empty news stays an empty list — a statement by the source. A missing news is not a statement about the news but about the response, and is reported as such.

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Example Use Cases

Schulamt / Institutional Communication

"How has the Schulamt Zürich been portrayed in media over the last 30 days?"
→ news_sentiment_monitor(entity="Schulamt Zürich", language="de", days_back=30)

"Create a weekly media briefing for leadership"
→ news_media_briefing(topics=["Volksschule Zürich", "KI Bildung", "Schuldigitalisierung"])

"What are Swiss media reporting on school digitalisation?"
→ news_search(query="Schuldigitalisierung", language="de", source_country="ch")

KI-Fachgruppe / AI Working Group

"What are the current tech trends in Swiss press this week?"
→ news_trend_radar(category="technology", source_country="ch", language="de")

"How are AI developments in education covered internationally?"
→ news_search(query="AI education classroom", language="en", number=20)

"Compare Swiss and German media coverage of AI regulation"
→ news_search(query="KI Regulierung", source_country="ch", language="de")
→ news_search(query="KI Regulierung", source_country="de", language="de")

City Administration / Location Research

"What is being reported about Zürich school infrastructure?"
→ news_geo_search(location="Zürich", query="Schule")

"Show today's front pages of Swiss newspapers"
→ news_front_pages(source_country="ch")

→ More use cases by audience →

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Sentiment Analysis

WorldNewsAPI offers German-language sentiment analysis — rare among news APIs:

⚠️ Sentiment is only available for German (de) and English (en).

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Safety, Limits & Responsible Use

Read-Only Operation

12 of the 15 tools carry readOnlyHint: true. All 9 monitoring tools (search, headlines, sentiment, briefing, article, sources, front_pages, trend, geo) are fully read-only and issue GET requests to WorldNewsAPI only. The 3 exceptions are local-only operations: news_alert_create and news_alert_delete (write/ delete ~/.news-monitor-mcp/alerts.json) and news_cache_clear (clears in-memory cache). None of the 15 tools modify any external data source.

API Rate Limits

Quotas checked against worldnewsapi.com/pricing on 2026-08-14. Undated, a quota is indistinguishable from a guess after a year. Two caveats worth knowing before you plan around this table:

• The API bills in points, not calls. What a request costs depends on the endpoint and its options, so there is no fixed "calls per day" figure — the earlier claim of 1,000 calls/month was both the wrong unit and the wrong magnitude.
• news_front_pages does not work on the free plan. Measured 2026-08-14: /retrieve-front-page answers HTTP 403 — This endpoint is not available on the free plan. The other 14 tools were reachable on the free key.
• Articles per call is not plan-dependent. Measured 2026-08-14 on the free plan: number=50 returned 50 articles, number=100 returned 100, both HTTP 200 (available: 13037 in each case). Earlier versions of this README claimed a cap of 10 for the free plan — that was this server's own default (DEFAULT_RESULTS), mistaken for a limit of the source.

The TTL cache (v0.2+) reduces redundant calls by up to 80%.

Data Privacy

• No personal data stored: The server holds no persistent user data. Cache entries are in-memory and reset on server restart.
• No profiling: The server retrieves publicly published journalism only. It is not designed for surveillance or personal profiling.
• Alert data: Alert configurations are stored locally in ~/.news-monitor-mcp/alerts.json — on your machine only, never transmitted.

Responsible Use

• Query public news only — do not use as a profiling tool for individuals.
• Sentiment scores reflect algorithmic analysis of journalistic tone, not verified editorial judgements.
• Results depend on WorldNewsAPI's indexing; Swiss regional media may be less well-covered than national outlets.

Terms of Service

Users must comply with:

• WorldNewsAPI Terms of Service
• WorldNewsAPI Privacy Policy

This MCP server is an independent open-source project and is not affiliated with WorldNewsAPI.

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Synergies with Other MCP Servers

news-monitor-mcp can be combined with other servers in the portfolio:

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Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md (Deutsch).

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Security & Compliance

• Report vulnerabilities privately: see SECURITY.md
• Swiss public-sector deployment: see docs/isds-klassifikation.md for the ISDS / Schutzbedarfsfeststellung
• Swiss data protection (revDSG) — duties, profiling, retention, drittlandtransfer: docs/privacy-dsg.md
• Audit history: audits/

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License

MIT License — see LICENSE

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Author

Hayal Oezkan · malkreide

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Credits & Related Projects

• Data: WorldNewsAPI – global news data with sentiment analysis
• Protocol: Model Context Protocol – Anthropic / Linux Foundation
• Related: swiss-culture-mcp – MCP server for Swiss cultural heritage data
• Related: srgssr-mcp – MCP server for SRG SSR Swiss public media
• Portfolio: Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio

Installation

Run via uv's uvx — no clone or manual install needed. Add to your MCP client config (mcpServers for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf; use a top-level servers key for VS Code in .vscode/mcp.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "news-monitor-mcp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "news-monitor-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}