The 1840s-1860s pre-date the high noon of the Raj; in most studies of British India, this period remains relatively unmarked, sandwiched between the years of the empire’s voracious territorial expansion and anti-colonial challenges to it. Yet, print media – particularly newspapers – exploded in these years, partly due to the easing of censorship. I examine Anglo-Indian newspapers from the period leading up to and during the 1857 Uprising from a perspective of circulation and rupture, connection and crisis. Materially, newspapers circulate, and their movement produced collusions and collisions; at times, however, circuits were blocked and the resulting rupture produced unexpected narratives. This paper turns to two moments of rupture: a sensational 1851 trial that pitted the East India Company against an Indian defendant and much of the resident Anglo-Indian community; and six months in 1857 when newspapers were unable to circulate. In each case, the blockage produced new circuits of information and accounts of empire.