A Marine drill sergeant says, “Jump!” A private first class asks, “How high?”

A track and field coach says, “Jump!” An athlete asks, “How far?”

A newspaper editor says, “Jump!” A reader asks, “How come?”

Or, “Huh?”

What’s a “jump”?

It’s a newspaper term for a story that starts on one page and is continued on another page. It can be a verb: The story “jumps” from Page 1A to, say, Page 5A. Or it can be a noun: The portion of the story that the reader finds on Page 5A is called a “jump.”

Now you know. And you thought it was a Van Halen song?

We jump stories routinely in your Anderson Independent-Mail. Too routinely, I am sure. On an average day, we start four stories on Page 1A, and we jump all four. We start four or five stories on the front page of our Local section, and we jump most of them. Ditto with Sports and most other sections.

On this page, three of four stories jump. Only this column doesn’t jump. I know precisely how much to write to fill this “hole” (500 words, give or take a few). Don’t think that I don’t have more to say on some Sundays than will fit in this space. I am the editor. If I want to write a longer column, I have the authority to say, “Jump!” And a copy editor/page designer would say, “Sir! Yes, sir!” (Or words to that effect.)

But when a column is in this “rail” position (it’s called a column because it fills one column of space), our practice is to hold the words to one page. If I make an exception for myself, other columnists would want the same privilege.

When a story jumps, we wonder how many readers actually read it in its entirety. And nothing drives readers (and this editor) more nuts than saying that a story continues on a certain page, and you turn to that page and discover that we fibbed. The jump actually is on another page, and you have to hunt for it.

I have worked for a newspaper at which jumps were forbidden. It’s difficult to design pages under such circumstances, but it can be done.

What if we restricted — or even eliminated — jumps in this newspaper?

As you know, we are working hard to reinvent the Independent-Mail. The date for “Independent’s Day,” in fact, is two months away: April 22. Let the countdown begin.

We’re striving to produce a new newspaper that is more “reader friendly.” Jumps are not friendly.

We’re close to scheduling community meetings to show off page prototypes. We want feedback before we move too far.

Our goal is to contain stories to one page. If a story must be continued, it will be continued on the next page (magazine-style). We already do this in Be, our weekly entertainment section. We did it in the “2008 Community Profile” special section that we hope you will enjoy today.

So … a newspaper editor says, “Jump!” Feel free to say, “How dare you!”