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Townhall API endpoint
Townhall article API
Returns public Townhall article metadata and body paragraphs from a canonical news or column URL. VIP stories are flagged with paywalled and return only the free lead paragraphs.
GETapiKey2 credits/requestTownhallpublicnews.articleResponseDoc
Townhall/townhall/articleEndpoint facts
- Method
- GET
- API path
- /townhall/article
- Auth
- apiKey
- Credits
- 2 credits/request
- Charged on
- Successful 2xx responses only
- Platform
- Townhall
- Response schema
- #/definitions/publicnews.articleResponseDoc
How this endpoint behaves
Query parameter: url is a canonical HTTPS Townhall story URL on townhall.com or www.townhall.com of the form /news/<author>/YYYY/MM/DD/<slug>-n<id> or /columnists/<author>/YYYY/MM/DD/<slug>-n<id>, e.g. https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/24/second-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524. Section pages, topic pages, author pages, video pages and other hosts return an invalid-params error. Query strings and fragments are ignored.
The endpoint returns public metadata (title, description, published_at, updated_at, section such as News or Columns, authors, image_url) and the body paragraphs. Ad slots, embedded tweets and image captions are not included. A story that does not exist returns not-found (or an upstream error when Townhall answers a never-issued small id with an error).
Paywall behavior: Townhall VIP stories (URL slug starting vip-, marked with a VIP badge in listings) are members-only. For those stories paywalled is true and paragraphs holds only the free lead paragraph(s); the members-only remainder is never returned. paywalled is omitted for free stories. Example gated story: https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/23/vip-hands-off-smithsonian-n2683453.
Example response (truncated):
{"code":200,"data":{"url":"https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/24/second-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524","title":"A Second Man Was Arrested in Mississippi Hanging Case. Guess What the AP Didn't Tell Us.","description":"A second man arrested in Mississippi hanging case; AP omits key facts about suspects' race.","published_at":"2026-09-24T22:00:53Z","updated_at":"2026-09-24T18:30:52Z","section":"News","authors":["Amy Curtis"],"image_url":"https://media.townhall.com/cdn/hodl/2026/161/9eb18b91-0a9e-4d95-9083-0b888275e26a-1200x630.png","paragraphs":["The Associated Press should be ashamed. Just two days ago, they were the recipients of a Community Note after their X post conveniently omitted some important facts about the murder of Tasia Fortune."]}}
Sampled response
- Request, 14 Oct 2026
- GET /townhall/article?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Fcolumnists%2Fvictordavishanson%2F2026%2F09%2F24%2Fai-and-the-same-old-politicized-hysteria-n2683548
- Fields returned with a value
- 9
| Field | In the sample | Value in the sample |
|---|---|---|
| url | Has a value | townhall.com |
| title | Has a value | 40 characters |
| description | Has a value | 86 characters |
| published_at | Has a value | 2026-09-24 |
| updated_at | Has a value | 2026-09-24 |
| section | Has a value | “Columns” |
| authors | Has a value | 1 entry |
| image_url | Has a value | media.townhall.com |
| paragraphs | Has a value | 79 entries |
Request parameters
| Parameter | Type | Required | Default | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| url | string | Yes | Canonical Townhall article URL | https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/24/second-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524 | |
| x-api-key (header) | string | Yes | API key required |
cURL example
curl -X GET "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/townhall/article?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Fnews%2Famy-curtis%2F2026%2F09%2F24%2Fsecond-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524" \ -H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY"
Example JSON response
{
"code": 200,
"data": {
"url": "https://townhall.com/news/amy-curtis/2026/09/24/second-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524",
"title": "A Second Man Was Arrested in Mississippi Hanging Case. Guess What the AP Didn't Tell Us.",
"description": "A second man arrested in Mississippi hanging case; AP omits key facts about suspects' race.",
"published_at": "2026-09-24T22:00:53Z",
"updated_at": "2026-09-24T18:30:52Z",
"section": "News",
"authors": [
"Amy Curtis"
],
"image_url": "https://media.townhall.com/cdn/hodl/2026/161/9eb18b91-0a9e-4d95-9083-0b888275e26a-1200x630.png",
"paragraphs": [
"The Associated Press should be ashamed. Just two days ago, they were the recipients of a Community Note after their X post conveniently omitted some important facts about the murder of Tasia Fortune."
]
}
}Request schema
No body schema
Response schema
#/definitions/publicnews.articleResponseDoc
| Field | Type | Required | Enum | Bounds | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| data | newsplatform.ArticleResponse | No | ||||
| data.authors | array | No | ||||
| data.description | string | No | ||||
| data.image_url | string | No | ||||
| data.paragraphs | array | No | ||||
| data.paywalled | boolean | No | Paywalled is true when the publisher serves only a teaser of this article to anonymous readers, so Paragraphs is a partial body rather than the full text. It is omitted when the full public body was returned. | |||
| data.published_at | string | No | ||||
| data.section | string | No | ||||
| data.title | string | No | ||||
| data.updated_at | string | No | ||||
| data.url | string | No |
Failure responses
| Status | Description | Schema |
|---|---|---|
| 400 | Bad Request | #/definitions/app.Response |
| 404 | Not Found | #/definitions/app.Response |
| 503 | Service Unavailable | #/definitions/app.Response |
Code examples
Use environment variables for secrets and keep Crawlora API keys server-side.
curl -X GET "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/townhall/article?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftownhall.com%2Fnews%2Famy-curtis%2F2026%2F09%2F24%2Fsecond-man-arrested-in-mississippi-hanging-ap-ignores-race-n2683524" \
-H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY"