JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) when reading Json file

Question

I am trying to read the following Json file to then paste it into a csv file. The file comes directly from google cloud bigquery (the csv export doesnt work for some reason). I am receiving the mentioned error when running this code:

import json

#prompt the user for a file to import
filename = "C:/Users/abc/Documents/Python Scripts/news_results.json"

#Read JSON data into the datastore variable
with open(filename) as f:
    datastore = json.load(f)

The structure of the Json file consists of article text, category and confidence where the article text contains a full text news article. :

[
  {
    "article_text": "Intel unveils 's photonics technology lab. Writing in the journal Nature,
Dr Paniccia - uter chips,\" he said.\n",
    "category": "/Computers & Electronics/Computer Hardware/Computer Components",
    "confidence": "0.5"
  },
  {
    "article_text": "Rank 'set to by gaming fans.\n",
    "category": "/Computers & Electronics/Consumer Electronics/Game Systems & Consoles",
    "confidence": "0.8399999737739563"
  }
]

The full traceback:

JSONDecodeError                           Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-9-8fd516f33e36> in <module>()
      6 #Read JSON data into the datastore variable
      7 with open(filename) as f:
----> 8     datastore = json.load(f)

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\__init__.py in load(fp, cls, object_hook, parse_float, parse_int, parse_constant, object_pairs_hook, **kw)
    297         cls=cls, object_hook=object_hook,
    298         parse_float=parse_float, parse_int=parse_int,
--> 299         parse_constant=parse_constant, object_pairs_hook=object_pairs_hook, **kw)
    300 
    301 

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\__init__.py in loads(s, encoding, cls, object_hook, parse_float, parse_int, parse_constant, object_pairs_hook, **kw)
    352             parse_int is None and parse_float is None and
    353             parse_constant is None and object_pairs_hook is None and not kw):
--> 354         return _default_decoder.decode(s)
    355     if cls is None:
    356         cls = JSONDecoder

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\decoder.py in decode(self, s, _w)
    337 
    338         """
--> 339         obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
    340         end = _w(s, end).end()
    341         if end != len(s):

~\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\decoder.py in raw_decode(self, s, idx)
    355             obj, end = self.scan_once(s, idx)
    356         except StopIteration as err:
--> 357             raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
    358         return obj, end

JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

Edit: using Anaconda Spyder I get the following traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):

  File "<ipython-input-2-3cca112a7d99>", line 1, in <module>
    runfile('C:/Users/abc/Documents/Python Scripts/Jsonimport.py', wdir='C:/Users/tmeyer/Documents/Python Scripts')

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\spyder\utils\site\sitecustomize.py", line 705, in runfile
    execfile(filename, namespace)

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\site-packages\spyder\utils\site\sitecustomize.py", line 102, in execfile
    exec(compile(f.read(), filename, 'exec'), namespace)

  File "C:/Users/abc/Documents/Python Scripts/Jsonimport.py", line 15, in <module>
    datastore = json.load(f)

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\__init__.py", line 299, in load
    parse_constant=parse_constant, object_pairs_hook=object_pairs_hook, **kw)

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\__init__.py", line 354, in loads
    return _default_decoder.decode(s)

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\decoder.py", line 339, in decode
    obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())

  File "C:\Users\abc\AppData\Local\Continuum\anaconda3\lib\json\decoder.py", line 357, in raw_decode
    raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None

JSONDecodeError: Expecting value