Recipes / Track a slow-moving topic without drowning in it
Track a slow-moving topic without drowning in it
/stories in semantic mode. The parameters matter less
than the reasoning behind them, so that is most of what is below.
The request
GET /stories
?q=emissions targets grid capacity renewables policy
&mode=semantic
&from=<now - 14d>
&limit=20Why these parameters
Broad standing topics produce continuous coverage, most of it commentary. Semantic mode with several concrete concepts in the query pulls toward reporting and away from opinion, and a two-week window smooths the daily noise without losing developments.
What comes back
Story clusters covering the period. Sorting by outlet count surfaces what the press collectively treated as significant, which for a slow topic is more useful than recency.
How this goes wrong
Using a single broad keyword like "climate". It returns an unusable volume dominated by passing mentions, and narrowing it later means rebuilding the query from scratch.