UCLA Daily: Newsroom Fetch

If you only install one fetcher from UCLA Daily, this is the one. UCLANewsroomFetch is the general-purpose node of the pack: a dropdown with all 11 UCLA Newsroom RSS category feeds, from Science & Technology to Opinion & Voices, plus a custom URL override if the dropdown ever runs out of options. The specialty fetchers (Med, Arts, Film) are just this node pre-aimed at one feed. Start here, branch out when you know what you actually want.

The pack, by Jeffrey A. Brick, turns UCLA's public feeds into lobby-display cards and daily reports. Every fetcher shares the same shape - UCLA_DATA in, UCLA_DATA and segment_text out - so Newsroom Fetch chains happily with any of its siblings between UCLADailyDataInit and the card, narrator, or pulse nodes.

How it works

Behind the dropdown is a hardcoded map of all 11 Newsroom category feeds. UCLA publishes each as a plain public RSS XML file - no API key, no auth. The node fetches the chosen feed through the shared http_utils helper (requests first, urllib fallback), parses the XML, and normalizes items into the pack's event dicts. Feed hiccups get logged to errors[] rather than killing the graph.

One detail that matters: IS_CHANGED returns the current time, so this node - like every fetcher here - re-fetches on every queue run. Great for a screen that must stay current, mildly annoying if you're iterating on layout and re-running constantly. Plan your runs.

The inputs

• ucla_data - required pipeline dict from UCLADailyDataInit.
• category - the dropdown. The 11 choices: main_feed, science_technology, health_behavior, environment_climate, nation_world_society, arts_culture, students_campus, university_news, ucla_community, faculty_staff, opinion_voices.
• max_items - 1–20, default 5.
• custom_rss_url - optional escape hatch. Paste any RSS URL here and it overrides the dropdown entirely. Handy if UCLA reshuffles its feeds or you want to point at a sibling campus feed.

Outputs

Two: ucla_data (chain onward) and segment_text - plain text for UCLALobbyCard, the UCLANarrator, or your own downstream text node.

Install

ComfyUI Manager → search UCLA Daily, or by hand:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/jbrick2070/ComfyUI-UCLADaily.git
pip install qrcode pillow requests

Restart ComfyUI, and it appears under UCLA Daily/Fetchers. No keys, no models.

Common issues

The two things people hit: (1) the feed map can go stale if UCLA renames a category - that's what custom_rss_url is for; (2) don't stack five Newsroom fetchers when one with a higher max_items would do - you're multiplying network hits on every queue run. One fetch, filter in your head, move on.