Journalist and Media List Builder

v1.0.0$0.008/journalistContact Discovery

Last updated October 29, 2026

Build a media list from the news. Enter your beats or topics and get the journalists who wrote about them recently: name, outlet, author page, matching article count, latest article, and the article links as proof. Press release wires left out. No key needed. Clay ready.

Install

bash
npx @mambalabsdev/mcp-journalist-media-list-builder

Every tool here also runs hosted, with no install at all, through Apify's MCP endpoint.

Features

  • Up to 20 topics per run, with Google News search words.
  • Authors read from each article's byline, kept only when the name reads as a person.
  • Proof on every row: matching article count, the newest article, and up to 10 article links.
  • Press release wires left out by default. It calls the Mamba Labs News and Media Mention Monitor for the articles, and that actor's article price applies too.
  • Pay per event: Journalist returned at $0.008.

Input

topicsarrayoptional

1 to 20 topics, beats, or search terms, for example "sales automation" or "fintech funding". Each one is a Google News search. Put a phrase in double quotes for an exact match.

since_daysstringoptional

How many days of articles to read, from 1 to 90. Default 30.

countrystringoptional

The Google News country edition, as a two letter code. Default US.

languagestringoptional

The language code of the edition, for example en, de, fr, es, or pt-419. Default en.

outlets_includearrayoptional

Optional. Outlet domains to keep, for example techcrunch.com. Empty keeps every outlet.

outlets_excludearrayoptional

Optional. Outlet domains never to return, for example your own blog.

include_press_releasesstringoptional

false (default): articles on press release wires (PR Newswire, Business Wire, GlobeNewswire, and others) are left out, because their author is the issuing company, not a journalist. true keeps them.

min_articlesstringoptional

Return a journalist only when they wrote at least this many of the matching articles, from 1 to 20. Default 1.

max_articles_per_topicstringoptional

How many of the newest articles to read for each topic, from 1 to 100. Default 30. Each article is one article-row charge of the News and Media Mention Monitor run this actor starts.

max_journalistsstringoptional

The most journalist rows to return, from 1 to 500. Default 50. The journalists with the most matching articles come first.

max_charge_usdstringoptional

Optional. Covers both this actor's charges and the news run it starts: up to 60 percent of it goes to the news run, and the run stops before any charge that would pass the total.

Output schema

json
{
  "row_type": "string",
  "journalist_name": "string",
  "outlet": "string",
  "outlet_domain": "string",
  "author_page_url": "string",
  "x_handle": "string",
  "article_count": "integer",
  "latest_article_title": "string",
  "latest_article_url": "string",
  "latest_published_at": "string",
  "topics_matched": "array",
  "article_urls": "array",
  "byline_source": "string",
  "since_days": "integer",
  "country": "string",
  "language": "string",
  "articles_found": "integer",
  "articles_read": "integer",
  "articles_with_byline": "integer",
  "journalists_returned": "integer",
  "news_run_id": "string",
  "row_status": "string",
  "error_reason": "string",
  "billable_events_json": "string",
  "source": "string",
  "checked_at": "string"
}

Pricing

$0.008per journalist
EventFree plan price
Journalist returned$0.008
Actor Start$0.0025

Pay per event on the Apify platform. Paid Apify plans pay less per event. No subscription, no seat license.

On the Apify free plan the actor stops at $1.50 of charges a month, about 188 journalists. Any paid Apify plan removes the cap.

Limits

  • About half of news pages carry a byline in their markup. Paywalled pages, pages that block automated reads, and pages that print the byline only as plain text are skipped.
  • A journalist who wrote about your topic outside Google News's newest 100 articles per topic is missed.
  • Emails and phone numbers are not returned.
  • Agency and wire bylines (Reuters, Associated Press, staff and desk labels) are left out on purpose.
  • The same person at two outlets is two rows, because you pitch a person at an outlet.