Document first, always
The day starts with the IRS newsroom and the Federal Register, not with what other outlets wrote. A story exists when there is a dated document behind it.
Small desk, written rules
Everything we require of a story is public and applies to everyone equally: Editorial Standards, Methodology, Corrections. A story that fails a check is held, not published.
Remote, asynchronous, checked
The desk is remote-first and writes rather than meets. Every figure that reaches a reader has been verified against the document it came from by someone other than the writer.