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CNN Heroes Profile Extractor

Extract biographical and profile data from CNN Hero pages with structured output.

Overview

This skill provides reliable extraction of hero profile information from CNN's Heroes section, handling both modern CNN article format (with JSON-LD structured data) and legacy archive pages (using Open Graph metadata).

Supported URL Patterns

• Modern articles: https://www.cnn.com/YYYY/MM/DD/world/cnn-hero-of-the-year-YYYY
• Modern articles: https://www.cnn.com/YYYY/MM/DD/...cnn.*hero...
• Legacy archive: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archiveYY/name.html

Functions

extract_profile

Extract comprehensive profile data from a single CNN Hero page.

Parameters:

• url (string, required): URL of the CNN Hero page

Returns:

{
  "success": true,
  "error": null,
  "data": {
    "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/17/world/amy-wright-2017-cnn-hero-of-the-year",
    "headline": "Advocate for disabled workers is 2017 CNN Hero of the Year",
    "description": "Amy Wright, who employs 40 people with disabilities...",
    "article_body": "Full article text...",
    "hero_name": "Amy Wright",
    "hero_year": "2017",
    "hero_type": "hero_of_the_year",
    "organization": "Bitty & Beau's Coffee",
    "images": [
      {
        "url": "https://media.cnn.com/...",
        "caption": "Amy Wright speaks onstage...",
        "credit": "Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CNN"
      }
    ],
    "date_published": "2017-12-18T03:04:48Z",
    "date_modified": "2018-03-08T15:49:35Z",
    "author": "Melonyce McAfee",
    "source": "json-ld"
  }
}

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "extract_profile",
    "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/17/world/amy-wright-2017-cnn-hero-of-the-year"
})

extract_profiles

Extract profiles from multiple CNN Hero pages concurrently.

Parameters:

• urls (array, required): List of CNN Hero page URLs

Returns:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "total": 3,
    "successful": 3,
    "failed": 0,
    "profiles": [
      {"success": true, "data": {...}},
      {"success": true, "data": {...}},
      {"success": true, "data": {...}}
    ]
  }
}

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "extract_profiles",
    "urls": [
        "https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/17/world/cnn-hero-of-the-year-2015",
        "https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/17/world/amy-wright-2017-cnn-hero-of-the-year"
    ]
})

check_urls

Quick accessibility check for CNN Hero page URLs.

Parameters:

• urls (array, required): List of URLs to check

Returns:

{
  "success": true,
  "data": {
    "total": 2,
    "results": [
      {"url": "...", "status": 200, "error": null},
      {"url": "...", "status": 404, "error": null}
    ]
  }
}

Extracted Data Fields

Data Sources

The skill uses a prioritized extraction strategy:

1. JSON-LD (preferred): Modern CNN articles contain structured NewsArticle data in JSON-LD format, providing the most comprehensive information including full article body and metadata.

2. Open Graph metadata: Fallback for pages without JSON-LD, extracting title, description, and basic metadata from OG tags.

3. Pattern extraction: Hero name, year, and type are extracted using regex patterns from combined text sources.

Error Handling

All functions return structured error responses:

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "HTTP error: 404",
  "data": null
}

Common errors:

• Missing required parameter: url or Missing required parameter: urls
• Invalid URL format
• HTTP error: 404 (page not found)
• Request timeout (timeout after 45 seconds)
• Network error: ... (connection issues)

Notes

• No authentication required: Uses public HTTP requests
• Rate limiting: Recommends 2 requests/second, 30 requests/minute
• Timeout: 45 seconds per request
• Legacy pages: Archive pages (archive10, etc.) have less structured data available

Tested URLs

The skill has been verified with:

• http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive10/anuradha.koirala.html (2010 Top 10 Hero)
• https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/17/world/cnn-hero-of-the-year-2015 (2015 Hero of the Year)
• https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/17/world/amy-wright-2017-cnn-hero-of-the-year (2017 Hero of the Year)

Technical Details

• Uses aiohttp for async HTTP requests
• Uses BeautifulSoup4 for HTML parsing
• Handles both HTTP and HTTPS URLs
• Follows redirects automatically
• User-Agent header included for compatibility