Monitor Medium Publications and Newsletter Feeds via API

Readers follow collections—Towards Data Science, niche newsletters—not just individual writers. Products that only track users miss half the signal.

Tool outcome: A publication watcher config + cron that logs new article_id rows per collection.

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Playbook (four steps)

1. GET /publication/id_for/{slug} → publication_id
2. GET /publication/{id} → directory metadata (name, followers, description)
3. GET /publication/{id}/articles on a schedule → syndication feed
4. GET /publication/{id}/newsletter → signup UX copy, cadence hints

Pair with content aggregator patterns for one normalized table.

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Resolve slug once

const API = 'https://api.zenndra.com';
const headers = { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.ZENNDRA_API_KEY}` };

async function resolvePublication(slug) {
  const res = await fetch(`${API}/publication/id_for/${encodeURIComponent(slug)}`, { headers });
  const { publication_id } = await res.json();
  return publication_id;
}

const pubId = await resolvePublication('towards-data-science');

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Poll for new stories

async function pollPublication(publicationId, knownIds) {
  const res = await fetch(`${API}/publication/${publicationId}/articles`, { headers });
  const { articles } = await res.json();
  const fresh = (articles ?? []).filter((a) => !knownIds.has(a.id));
  fresh.forEach((a) => knownIds.add(a.id));
  return fresh; // enqueue webhooks, Slack, email digest
}

Store knownIds in Redis or Postgres per publication.

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Who needs this

• Competitive intelligence — alert when a rival publication ships daily.
• Newsletter tools — cross-promote partner collections.
• Employee intranets — surface partner content with attribution.

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Operations

• Deduplicate globally on article_id if you watch overlapping pubs.
• Alert on three empty polls—usually wrong slug, not “no news.”
• Link out to original Medium URLs in every UI surface.

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Keywords

medium publication api, monitor medium publication, medium collection feed, medium newsletter metadata.

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Further reading

• Zenndra: Monitor Medium publications
• Publication slug → articles API reference