The trace provided in the issue shows the exception occurs due to trying to parse faulty response object JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
try except catches the error and returns empty set instead of raising the exception.
The error is logged and the API user sees empty list of news instead of the raised exception.
Add check if returned value is None before accessing its text to avoid AttributeError
JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)