rtimes

rtimes is a collection of functions to search and acquire data from various New York Times APIs, some of which now live at Propublica.

Functions in rtimes that wrap these APIs are prefixed by two letter acronyms fo reach API + the function name itself, e.g.: cg + fxn

cg for the Congress API
as for the Article Search API
cf for the Campaign Finance API
geo for the Geographic API

Please get your own API keys at http://developer.nytimes.com/ for as and geo functions, and for cg and cf functions by emailing Propublica at apihelp@propublica.org.

You'll need a different key for each API of the Nytimes APIs, but only one key for the Propublica APIs

Data from the New York Times API is provided by The New York Times.

And data from Propublica API is provided by Propublica

I set up the functions so that you can put the key in your .Renviron file (or any file on your system that holds env vars), which will be called on startup of R, and then you don't have to enter your API key for each run of a function. Use the following env var names

NYTIMES_GEO_KEY - for geo methods
NYTIMES_AS_KEY - for as methods
PROPUBLICA_API_KEY - for cg and cf methods

Note about full-text content

This packge only gives you access to article metadata (url, headline, byline, summary, etc.), and does not return full article content.

You can get access to full article content from 1987-2007 from UPenn for non-commercial use at https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/ldc2008t19

For commercial use, full article content can be purchased from the NYT Syndication site at https://www.nytsyn.com/

Installation

From CRAN

install.packages("rtimes")

Development version from GitHub

install.packages("devtools")
devtools::install_github("ropengov/rtimes")

library("rtimes")

Congress API

out <- cg_rollcallvote(congress_no = 105, chamber = 'house', session_no = 2, rollcall_no = 38)
out$votes
#>      category yes no present not_voting majority_position
#> 1  democratic 194  0       0          9               Yes
#> 2  republican 219  1       0          6               Yes
#> 3 independent   1  0       0          0              <NA>
#> 4       total 414  1       0         15              <NA>

Article Search API

x <- as_search(q = "bailout", begin_date = "20081001", end_date = '20081201')
x$data
#> # A tibble: 10 x 19
#>                                                                        web_url
#>  *                                                                       <chr>
#>  1 https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/10/17/nader-displays-new-fervor-on-the-ba
#>  2              https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/its-the-economy-redux/
#>  3                https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/opinion/l01citigroup.html
#>  4             https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/economy/01auto.html
#>  5                    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/01tanta.html
#>  6                      https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/01uaw.html
#>  7         https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/economy/01stimulus.html
#>  8                      https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30sun1.html
#>  9                    https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30boskin.html
#> 10                   https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/business/30dealer.html
#> # ... with 18 more variables: snippet <chr>, abstract <chr>, source <chr>,
#> #   multimedia <list>, keywords <list>, pub_date <chr>,
#> #   document_type <chr>, section_name <chr>, type_of_material <chr>,
#> #   `_id` <chr>, word_count <int>, score <dbl>, print_page <chr>,
#> #   new_desk <chr>, headline.main <chr>, headline.kicker <chr>,
#> #   headline.print_headline <chr>, byline.original <chr>

Campaign Finance API

cf_candidate_details(campaign_cycle = 2008, fec_id = 'P80003338')
#> $status
#> [1] "OK"
#>
#> $copyright
#> [1] "Copyright (c) 2017 ProPublica Inc. All Rights Reserved."
#>
#> $data
#> # A tibble: 1 x 24
#>          id          name party
#>       <chr>         <chr> <chr>
#> 1 P80003338 OBAMA, BARACK   DEM
#> # ... with 21 more variables: fec_uri <chr>, committee <chr>,
#> #   mailing_address <chr>, mailing_city <chr>, mailing_state <chr>,
#> #   mailing_zip <chr>, status <chr>, total_receipts <chr>,
#> #   total_from_individuals <chr>, total_from_pacs <chr>,
#> #   total_contributions <chr>, candidate_loans <chr>,
#> #   total_disbursements <chr>, begin_cash <chr>, end_cash <chr>,
#> #   total_refunds <chr>, debts_owed <chr>, date_coverage_from <chr>,
#> #   date_coverage_to <chr>, independent_expenditures <chr>,
#> #   coordinated_expenditures <chr>

Geographic API

geo_search(country_code = "US")
#> $copyright
#> [1] "Copyright (c) 2015 The New York Times Company.  All Rights Reserved."
#>
#> $meta
#>   status num_results
#> 1     OK         100
#>
#> $data
#> # A tibble: 100 x 27
#>    concept_id              concept_name geocode_id geoname_id
#>  *      <chr>                     <chr>      <int>      <int>
#>  1      22456             Abilene (Tex)       4500    4669635
#>  2      22460             Abingdon (Va)       7752    4743815
#>  3      22480 Acadia National Park (Me)       4504    4956449
#>  4      22508 Adirondack Mountains (NY)       1488    5106772
#>  5      22548                   Alabama        364    4829764
#>  6      22556                    Alaska        292    5879092
#>  7      22564               Albany (NY)        464    5106834
#>  8      22572          Albuquerque (NM)       1596    5454711
#>  9      22576  Alcatraz (San Francisco)       7772    5322901
#> 10      22580           Alexandria (Va)       4008    4744091
#> # ... with 90 more rows, and 23 more variables: name <chr>,
#> #   latitude <dbl>, longitude <dbl>, elevation <int>, population <int>,
#> #   country_code <chr>, country_name <chr>, admin_code1 <chr>,
#> #   admin_code2 <chr>, admin_code3 <lgl>, admin_code4 <lgl>,
#> #   admin_name1 <chr>, admin_name2 <chr>, admin_name3 <lgl>,
#> #   admin_name4 <lgl>, feature_class <chr>, feature_code <chr>,
#> #   feature_code_name <chr>, time_zone_id <chr>, dst_offset <dbl>,
#> #   gmt_offset <dbl>, geocodes_created <chr>, geocodes_updated <chr>

elinw / rtimes