Following the News with NewsTracker

What does NewsTracker do?

NewsTracker watches the news sources you choose — any sports website or RSS feed — and continuously collects the latest stories from them. Instead of opening a dozen tabs to keep up with what's happening, you get a single, always-current feed of headlines delivered to you, with real-time alerts when something new lands.

When you spot a story worth covering, you open it, read it on the original site, and use it as the basis for your own article. NewsTracker keeps track of what you've already seen and which stories you've written from, so nothing slips through and nothing gets covered twice.

In short: you create a topic (for example, "Premier League" or "Transfers"), give it a name, add one or more sources you want to follow, and optionally add keywords to narrow it down to just the stories you care about. NewsTracker handles the rest — checking your sources, pulling in new headlines, and notifying you the moment they appear.

Setting up a topic: the three fields

1. Topic Name (required)

A label for your own reference. Your topics are private to your account — only you see them, and the name never appears on any published content. Choose something that clearly describes what you're following so you can recognize it at a glance in your topic list.

Examples:

• Premier League – Sky Sports
• Barcelona FC – All Sources
• Transfer Window – BBC Sport

2. Source URL (required)

The web address of a news source you want to follow. This can be a regular website page or a direct RSS feed link — both work. For a normal web page, NewsTracker reads the page and intelligently identifies the individual articles on it. For an RSS feed, it receives the stories directly in a clean, structured form. You can add several sources to a single topic, so one topic can pull from multiple outlets at once.

Examples:

• Website page: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football
• RSS feed: https://www.espn.co.uk/espn/rss/football/news

Tip: Both options work well. RSS feeds tend to deliver the most consistent results — see the guide below to find one for any major sports outlet. If a site doesn't offer an RSS feed, just paste the normal page address and NewsTracker will handle the rest.

3. Keywords (optional)

Filter the source so only stories containing specific words or phrases reach your feed. Leave this blank to receive every story from the source. Enter multiple keywords or phrases separated by commas — matching is exact, so spelling matters.

• Single team: Arsenal — only stories mentioning "Arsenal" reach your feed.
• Multiple clubs: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham — stories mentioning any one of these reach your feed.
• Player names & phrases: Lionel Messi, World Cup final, injury update — full phrases work just like single words; use commas as the only separator.

Watch out: Keyword matching ignores capitalization but must match the exact term. United will match Manchester United, Leeds United, and any club or person with "United" in the name. Use the full term — Manchester United — to be more precise.

Website page vs. RSS feed: which should I use?

Both work in NewsTracker — you don't have to hunt for an RSS feed if you don't want to. The difference is in how NewsTracker reads them.

Source type	How it works	Examples
Website page (easiest)	Any URL you'd visit in a browser. NewsTracker reads the page and automatically identifies the articles on it. Just copy the address from your browser.	https://www.bbc.com/sport/football https://www.skysports.com/football
RSS feed (most reliable)	A purpose-built address that delivers articles with their titles, links, and images in a clean, consistent format. Tends to give the most accurate, complete results.	https://www.espn.co.uk/espn/rss/football/news https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/football/rss.xml

How to tell them apart: RSS feed URLs often contain words like /rss, /feed, or end in .xml. If you paste one into a browser and see raw code instead of a normal webpage, it's an RSS feed and it will work perfectly here.

How to find the RSS feed for any sports outlet

1. Try adding /feed or /rss to the website address. Many news sites support this: try https://www.example.com/sport/feed or https://www.example.com/rss. If the page loads raw code rather than a normal page, you've found the feed.
2. Check the site's footer or "Subscribe" page. Many sports publishers list all their RSS feeds in their footer, under a "Follow us" or "Newsletters & feeds" section, or on a dedicated subscriptions page.
3. Search Google for the feed directly. Try a search like site:skysports.com rss feed or "BBC Sport" football rss feed url. Most major publishers document their feeds in their own help articles.
4. Use a browser RSS extension. Extensions like RSS Feed Reader (Chrome and Firefox) automatically detect when a page has a feed and show you the direct URL — no guessing required.
5. Look for the orange RSS icon on the page. It links directly to the feed. Right-click it, choose "Copy link address," and paste that URL into the Source URL field.

Quick reference — known RSS feeds:
BBC Sport (Football): https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/sport/football/rss.xml
ESPN Football: https://www.espn.co.uk/espn/rss/football/news

Most major outlets follow similar URL patterns. Check each publisher's help or "About" page for feeds specific to leagues, teams, or topics.

Note on ESPN league page URLs: A URL like https://www.espn.com/soccer/league/_/name/eng.1 is a standard ESPN webpage, not an RSS feed. NewsTracker can still follow it as a website page — but for the cleanest results, use ESPN's dedicated RSS feed shown above instead.

What happens once your topic is set up?

1. NewsTracker starts watching, right away. As soon as you save, your source is live and being monitored. There's nothing else to switch on.
2. It collects the latest stories for you. For an RSS feed, new stories arrive in near real-time as the source publishes them. For a website page, NewsTracker reads the page on a regular cycle and identifies the new articles. Either way, your keyword filter is applied so only relevant stories come through.
3. New stories appear in your feed — and you're notified. Headlines show up in your topic, newest first, each with its title, link, and thumbnail. An unseen counter shows how many you haven't looked at yet, and you get a live notification the moment something new arrives. The same story is never shown twice.
4. You review and decide what to cover. Open any story to read it on the original site. When you write your own article based on it, mark it as used — NewsTracker remembers what you've seen and what you've already covered, so nothing gets missed or duplicated.

Frequently asked questions

Does NewsTracker publish articles automatically?

No. NewsTracker only surfaces stories from your sources so you can keep up with the news — it never writes or publishes anything on its own. You always decide which stories to cover and you create the article yourself.

Can other people on my team see the topics I set up?

No. Your topics are private to your own account. Each person builds their own set of topics and sources, so you can follow exactly what's relevant to your beat without affecting anyone else.

My keywords aren't filtering correctly — why am I seeing unrelated stories?

Keywords match exact text. If you set "United" as a keyword, you'll see stories about Manchester United, Leeds United, West Ham United, and anything else mentioning the word "united". Use the full specific phrase — "Manchester United" — to narrow your results.

The source I entered doesn't seem to be working — what should I try?

First confirm the address loads in a browser and is publicly accessible (not behind a login or paywall). Both website pages and RSS feeds work, but if a normal page isn't returning results, try finding that outlet's direct RSS feed instead — see the guide above. RSS feeds give the most reliable results.

Can one topic follow more than one source?

Yes. A topic can hold several sources at once — mix websites and RSS feeds freely. For example, a "Premier League" topic could follow BBC Sport, Sky Sports, and an ESPN feed together, with all their stories flowing into the same place. Your keywords apply across all the sources in that topic.

Can I follow the same source in more than one topic?

Yes. You can set up separate topics that point to the same source but use different keyword filters. For example, "BBC Sport – Arsenal" and "BBC Sport – Chelsea" can both follow the same BBC feed while each filters for its own club.

How quickly will a breaking story show up?

For RSS feeds, new stories typically appear within a few minutes of being published at the source. For website pages, NewsTracker re-checks the page on a regular cycle, so there may be a slightly longer wait. You'll get a notification as soon as a new story lands either way.

Do old stories pile up in my feed forever?

No. NewsTracker automatically clears out older stories after a set period, so your feed stays focused on what's current. You don't need to clean anything up manually.