Open Newswire is a free online tool for journalists and editors. It aggregates openly-licensed news articles from hundreds of sources around the clock.
These articles can be reused by other news outlets under Creative Commons licenses or similar conditions — you don’t need to ask permission, and you don’t need to pay a cent. Here’s how it works:
License tags
Next to each headline is a license tag. Hover over this to read a summary of the license, or click on it to read that outlet’s full terms and conditions for republication. As a rule, most outlets are able to republish most articles — but it’s always important to double check!
Language selection
Browse languages on the left hand side and select multiple at once. Mix and match as many languages as you like! You can bookmark the URL of your preferred languages to save this selection for next time.
Keyword search
The search bar at the top of the page lets you browse articles related to specific topics, events, people or places. Individual keywords work best.
What people are saying about Open Newswire
Open Newswire has been featured by the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, InOldNews, Medier for alle, the SPJ Journalist’s Toolbox and elsewhere.
In 2023, Open Newswire collaborated with Creative Commons to produce A Journalist’s Guide to Creative Commons. This handbook outlines how journalists and editors can incorporate CC-licensed photos and text into their work to improve their coverage. It also aims to demystify many of the misconceptions about whether such content is allowed to be reused by journalists, and how to correctly attribute it.
We’re always looking to collaborate with news organizations and other advocates in the media space!
We readily provide free training on how to use Open Newswire as well as how to use Creative Commons-licensed content in journalism more broadly. This is possible both online and offline.
(Car.argh via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Supplied)
FAQs
Who funds Open Newswire?
Open Newswire is a non-profit project. From its inception in 2020 until 2024, Open Newswire was entirely self-funded by Z Crellin, a journalist from Australia.
In 2024, Open Newswire received generous support from the Jain Family Institute to fund a complete rebuild with new and improved features. This rebuild is ongoing.
Is Open Newswire open source?
Yes! Open Newswire’s source code is free to use, adapt and distribute under the MIT License. You can view our GitHib repository here.
There’s no obligation to ask for permission, but we love to hear when people use our software. Please feel free to get in touch to show off what you’ve made!
How do you choose what sources to incorporate?
We include any bonafide news source that publishes under a Creative Commons license, or that encourages its articles to be shares under some other scheme.
If you know of any additional news sources that full under these category, please do reach out!
The only sources we deliberately exclude are personal blogs and blatant misinformation.
Why am I seeing so many articles in a certain language?
You can select your own language from the left-hand side of the newswire.
Additionally, it’s worth considering the time of day. If you open the tool when one part of the world is awake and another part is asleep, that will dictate what articles are most recent in the feed.
What do the different licenses mean?
Good question! We’ve tried to break down the different licenses here.
Are the articles translated into different languages?
No. Open Newswire does not translate anything.
All articles are shown in the language that they were originally written. English, Spanish and Portuguese have the most sources and therefore the most articles.