Newsreader - Download the news and weather on your Raspberry Pi using RSS and Python

What is Newsreader?

Newsreader is a Python program that uses feedparser to download RSS headlines from your favourite news site, and gets the current weather using the Open Weather API. It appeared in a tutorial in The MagPi magazine, issue 121.

You can incorporate Newsreader in other Python projects. I've written a short program to display the headlines on a Display-O-Tron HAT, as an example. It also forms the basis of the news bulletins in my Raspberry Radio project.

UPDATE: You can now download both parts of my Raspberry Radio tutorial in a single PDF here.

On this webpage, you can download the code for the project.

A news headline shown on a Display-O-Tron HAT.

Installing the dependencies

You'll need to install the required libraries. Open a terminal window and then enter the following instructions:

pip install feedparser
pip install requests

Download the Newsreader code

Save this program as rr_newsreader.py, so that it works with the other programs that will import it.

# rr_newsreader generates news, weather, and date reports
# From Raspberry Radio project in The MagPi by Sean McManus

import feedparser
import requests
import random
from datetime import datetime

def get_weather():
    data = requests.get(
        "http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather?q=London,uk&units=metric&APPID=YOUR_API_KEY")
    if data.status_code == 200:
        report = random.choice(["The weather today is ",
                                "We're looking at ",
                                "Today, expect ",
                                "There's going to be ",
                                "Out and about today, you'll see "])
        weather_forecast = data.json().get('weather')
        description = weather_forecast[0].get('description')
        report += description
        main = data.json().get('main')
        temperature = main.get('temp')
        report += f". The temperature is {temperature} Celcius."
        return report, temperature
    else:
        return "There is no weather report today.", False
    
def get_news():
    news_list = []
    rss_feed = feedparser.parse('https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/rss')
    news_list.append("Here's the news from The Guardian.")
    for i in range(3):
        news_list.append(rss_feed.entries[i].title)
    return news_list

def get_date():
    date = datetime.today()
    date_text = f"It's {date.strftime('%A')} {date.strftime('%d')} {date.strftime('%B')}."
    return date_text

Example programs using rr_newsreader.py

Here's a simple program to output the date, news, and weather using rr_newsreader.py. You need to put both programs in the same folder.

# Print the weather, date and news from rr_newsreader.py
# From Raspberry Radio project in The MagPi by Sean McManus

import rr_newsreader
weather_report, temperature = rr_newsreader.get_weather()
print(weather_report)
date_report = rr_newsreader.get_date()
print(date_report)
news_report = rr_newsreader.get_news()
for line in news_report:
    print(line)

Here's a program that displays the news headlines on a Display-O-Tron HAT, with a simple animation effect.

# News display for Displayotron HAT
# From Raspberry Radio project in The MagPi by Sean McManus

import rr_newsreader
import time
import dot3k.backlight as backlight
import dot3k.lcd as lcd

def display_text(text):
    backlight.rgb(200, 200, 255)
    for i in range(min(len(text), 48)):
        substring = text[:i+1]
        lcd.clear()
        lcd.write(substring)
        time.sleep(0.1)
    backlight.rgb(255, 255, 255)
    time.sleep(3)

date_report = rr_newsreader.get_date()
display_text(date_report)

news_report = rr_newsreader.get_news()
for line in news_report:
    display_text(line)

More Raspberry Pi projects

Find more Raspberry Pi projects and tutorials here.