Editorial Standards

What we cover

Regulatory and enforcement actions that change what Defense Industrial Base contractors must do or prove. This includes:

• Final rules, interim rules, and proposed rules from DoD, CISA, OMB, and related agencies
• Federal Register notices with cybersecurity, procurement, or CUI implications
• NIST publications and official guidance revisions
• Cyber AB and C3PAO ecosystem developments (assessor guidance, marketplace changes)
• FedRAMP authorizations, revocations, and marketplace shifts
• DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative enforcement actions
• Significant GAO bid protest decisions touching cyber requirements
• State cyber compliance programs with federal contractor relevance

What we don't cover

• Vendor announcements without an underlying regulatory hook
• Opinion columns or commentary without a news peg
• Paywalled content where the underlying primary source is inaccessible
• Anonymous tips published without independent corroboration
• Reposts of content that originated on The Broadside

Source standards

We rank sources by authority:

1. Primary regulatory sources — Federal Register, agency press pages, eCFR, regulations.gov dockets, official NIST/CISA/DoD documents. Always linked directly.
2. Official secondary — Cyber AB, FedRAMP marketplace, court filings, GAO decisions.
3. Trade press — Accepted as a pointer to the primary source, not as the authoritative record. We link the primary source wherever available; trade press is credited as the alert.

If a story cannot be sourced to a primary document, it does not publish.

AI disclosure

The Broadside uses AI at several stages of its editorial pipeline:

• Classification — An AI classifier scores each ingested item for relevance, regulatory weight, and topic. This determines whether an item surfaces in the editor queue, not whether it publishes.
• Drafting — For items scoring above a regulatory weight threshold, AI produces a draft headline and brief that an editor reviews and edits before publication. The final text is the editor's, not the model's.
• Illustration — Story illustrations are generated by an image AI and reviewed for appropriateness by an editor.
• Auto-publish — High-confidence items meeting weight thresholds may publish automatically, subject to rate caps and editor override at any time. All auto-published stories remain in the editorial queue for post-hoc review.

AI does not determine editorial position, policy interpretation, or fact judgment. No story is published without a human editor having access to review and override it.

Corrections

Errors are corrected promptly. Significant factual corrections are noted inline at the bottom of the story with the date of correction. We do not silently overwrite published stories. To report an error, email editorial@deepfathom.ai with the story URL and the specific claim in question.

Independence

The Broadside carries no advertising. Deep Fathom is a compliance advisory and technology firm; The Broadside is its editorial publication. Editorial decisions are made independently of Deep Fathom's commercial relationships. The Broadside does not accept sponsored content, paid placement, or affiliate links.

Deep Fathom may publish its own analysis and guidance on deepfathom.ai — those pieces are clearly attributed to the firm and are separate from The Broadside's editorial coverage.

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