# Introduction

The News Answers API turns a natural-language question into a direct answer backed by citations from Webz.io news.

The service interprets the question, plans the necessary news searches, finds supporting evidence, and generates an answer with links to the cited articles. Time windows, sources, language, and sort order are inferred from the question.

## How it works

1. The API interprets the question and plans one or more news searches.
2. It gathers and ranks supporting news evidence.
3. It generates an answer with numbered citation markers such as `[1]`.

Each marker maps to a cited article and supporting excerpt in the response.

## Answer modes

- **Standard** produces a concise answer.
- **Detailed** uses more evidence to produce a longer answer and uses more credits.

See [Request & Response](news-answers-api-reference) to call the API and select an answer mode. See [Errors, Limits & Credits](news-answers-api-errors-limits) for validation and billing details.