Get GDELT TV Clips
gdelt_get_tv_clipsRetrieve the top matching TV news clips for a query from the Internet Archive's Television News Archive: returns every fetched in-window clip, up to 3,000. Each clip includes show name, the station's display name — with its station ID when that name resolves to one — air timestamp, a 15-second transcript excerpt, and a direct link to view the full one-minute clip. Use after gdelt_search_tv to read the actual transcript content driving a coverage spike — pass a series' station value as stations here. GDELT answers TV windows in whole clock hours; clips it returns from outside an explicit startDatetime/endDatetime window are dropped. 3,000 is a hard per-call ceiling and GDELT offers no cursor: when a query fills it, re-query narrower startDatetime/endDatetime windows — the response hands back the exact windows to use. Archive coverage varies by station; use gdelt_list_tv_stations for station IDs and monitoring date ranges.
Tool call template
Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"arguments": {
"query": "<query>"
},
"name": "gdelt_get_tv_clips"
}
}Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| sort | No | Sort order: relevance (default), dateDesc (newest first), dateAsc (oldest first). | relevance |
| query | Yes | Search query for TV transcript content. Same TV operators as gdelt_search_tv: station:CNN, network:CBS, market:"National", show:"Anderson Cooper", context:"vaccine". | |
| stations | No | Station IDs to filter to (e.g. ["CNN", "FOXNEWS"]) — the stationId values gdelt_list_tv_stations returns, not display labels such as "FOX News". Alternatively use station:, network:, or quoted market: selectors in query. A selector is required; use gdelt_list_tv_stations for networks, markets, and monitoring dates. | |
| timespan | No | Relative window counting back from now (a number and unit such as d, m, or y). Now is past the end of most stations' monitoring, so for archived periods set startDatetime/endDatetime inside a station's range from gdelt_list_tv_stations. Ignored when startDatetime/endDatetime are set. | |
| maxRecords | No | Maximum number of clips to fetch. Defaults to 50; values above 3000 run at 3000 with a limitClamp disclosure unless clamping is disabled. Every fetched in-window record is returned. 3000 is GDELT's hard per-call ceiling, with no cursor; split a query that fills it into narrower startDatetime/endDatetime windows. | |
| endDatetime | No | End datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200131235959). Must pair with startDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected. | |
| startDatetime | No | Start datetime in GDELT format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS — exactly 14 digits, no separators (e.g. 20200101000000). Must pair with endDatetime; supplying only one of the two is rejected. |
Output Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| clips | No | Matching TV clips sorted per the sort parameter. | |
| error | No | Present when the call failed. Absent on success. | |
| notice | No | Guidance on an incomplete or empty result. When no clips matched, or every returned clip aired outside the requested window: the resolved timespan window; for each selected station whose monitoring range the window misses, that range and how to search inside it; and how to check station monitoring dates and choose an explicit window. When GDELT returned clips aired outside the requested window, how many were dropped. When the maxRecords cap was reached, raise maxRecords below the 3000 ceiling or narrow the date window at it. When a returned clip has no station ID, why: GDELT returned it without a station label, or its station catalog did not load or has no entry for the named label — with how to look the ID up. Absent when a non-empty result set is below the cap, no clip was dropped as out of window, and every clip carries its station ID. | |
| limitClamp | No | Present only when the requested count exceeded the per-call cap: the call ran exactly as a call at the cap, and every count, notice, and continuation in this response reflects the applied value. | |
| totalCount | No | Number of clips returned. | |
| staleResponse | No | Present only when the refetch of this exact request was refused, failed, or came back empty, and the response is GDELT's stored answer from fetchedAt instead. It holds nothing published after fetchedAt; a relative timespan covers the window ending at fetchedAt, not now. Absent on a live answer. | |
| effectiveQuery | No | Echoed query string for use in follow-up calls. | |
| continuationWindows | No | Windows to re-run this query against when maxRecords reaches its 3000 ceiling: the queried window split in two on a clock hour, with no shared second. Absent when no window is known or narrowing cannot reach further clips. |