Published September 27, 2025 

Before, during and immediately after my seminary days, I read a lot of books. A story in one of them made sense in Catholic circles as a lesson in unquestioned tradition for the sake of tradition with no further thought.

As I recall, the setting was Easter. A woman asked her mom about her practice of cutting the ends off a ham before she baked it. “Family tradition,” her mom said. “My mother did it that way, and I’ve always done it that way.”

They asked the oldest living family member, who explained that the grandmother would cut the ends off a ham because she didn’t have a pan or oven big enough for a whole ham.

I think about that story every time someone in a newsroom explains a policy or tradition by saying, “That’s how we’ve always done it,” “That’s how my first editor taught me,” or some version of those. No intellectual curiosity about why they do the things they insist must be done that way!

I read the book with that parable in it the year before my journalism career, which means I read it 43 years ago.

Think about all the juicy stuff carved off the ends — and elsewhere in a feature story or column — by overzealous editors all too happy to cut. Cut, cut, cut, then brag about it, all while having no professional understanding of why you were doing it.

It’s far more common in newsroom editing than you might think. I suspect it’s true in lots of other places where people work with words. “That’s how I was taught” is the leader in the clubhouse for justifications. These are professionals!

There’s a better way, I told myself years ago. Study. Read. Keep up with how language evolves. Learn how best practices have changed and continue to change. Liberate your mind. Serve your readers, not some rule you never questioned.

Sending love.

♥

Thank you

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Photo by RawPixel.com via Shutterstock.

Note: I rescheduled this post for today after its original publication but couldn’t figure out how to keep email notifications from going out again. Sorry for any inconvenience.