# Sidewise

> A free, unauthenticated JSON API for current headlines from 17 news outlets across the
> political spectrum, with left/center/right bias tags and blindspot detection — stories
> covered by only one side. Also exposed as an MCP server.

Sidewise polls 17 RSS feeds every 2 minutes at the edge and returns two views of the same
pull: a flat reverse-chronological feed, and headlines clustered by story so you can see how
different outlets covered the same event.

Every source carries a bias score from -2 (left) to +2 (right). 0 means center, or
non-political in the case of tech outlets like Hacker News and Daring Fireball. A cluster is
flagged `blindspot: true` when more than one outlet covered it but all of them sit on the
same side — i.e. one audience is not hearing about it.

Bias scores are the author's hand assignments, not a third-party rating. Treat them as a
rough lean, not a measurement.

## API

Base: https://sidewise.jaybulb.com

- `GET /api/stories` — headlines. All parameters optional.
  - `view` — `latest` (flat feed), `stories` (clustered), or `both`. Default `both`.
  - `outlet` — restrict to one outlet, e.g. `Hacker News`.
  - `bias` — `left`, `center`, or `right`.
  - `blindspot` — `true` to return only one-sided stories.
  - `q` — case-insensitive substring match on headline text.
  - `limit` — max results, capped at 200.

No API key, no rate limit, CORS open to all origins. Feeds are re-pulled at most every
2 minutes; responses are sent `no-store`, so every request reflects your exact filters.

Note on filtering: `bias` and `outlet` select *which clusters* to return but never strip
sources out of them — a cluster's whole value is the cross-outlet comparison.

### Examples

```
curl 'https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/api/stories'
curl 'https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/api/stories?view=latest&outlet=Hacker%20News&limit=10'
curl 'https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/api/stories?view=stories&blindspot=true'
curl 'https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/api/stories?view=latest&bias=right&q=budget'
```

### Response

```json
{
  "updated": 1754700000000,
  "stories": [
    {
      "title": "Fed holds rates steady",
      "blindspot": false,
      "sources": [
        { "title": "Fed holds rates steady", "link": "https://…", "outlet": "NPR", "bias": -1 },
        { "title": "Fed refuses to cut rates", "link": "https://…", "outlet": "Fox News", "bias": 2 }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "latest": [
    { "title": "Fed holds rates steady", "link": "https://…", "outlet": "NPR", "bias": -1, "ts": 1754699000000 }
  ]
}
```

`ts` is epoch milliseconds, or `0` when the source feed published no date — those items sort
to the bottom of `latest`.

## MCP

Streamable HTTP endpoint: https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/mcp

```
claude mcp add --transport http sidewise https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/mcp
```

Tools:

- `get_news` — params `view`, `outlet`, `bias`, `q`, `limit`.
- `get_blindspots` — params `limit`. Returns only one-sided stories.

Stateless, no authentication.

## Outlets

CBC, The Guardian, NPR, BBC, Global News, National Post, Fox News, NY Post,
Daily Wire, Hacker News, Daring Fireball, NBC News, Washington Post,
Wall Street Journal, New York Post Opinion, Vancouver Sun, The Province.

## Optional

- OpenAPI spec: https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/openapi.yaml
- Source: https://github.com/nulljosh/sidewise
- Security contact: https://sidewise.jaybulb.com/.well-known/security.txt
- License: MIT. Headlines and links belong to their publishers; Newsline stores nothing and
  links out to the original article.