The power of a blank column

In the latest installment of Newspapers and Civilization, Newsjunkie publisher Gordon Whiting profiles Ramnath Goenka, the legendary Indian newspaper publisher who defied both British colonial censorship and the authoritarian restrictions imposed during Indira Gandhi's Emergency. One of Goenka's most famous acts of resistance was publishing a blank editorial column—a silent protest that became one of the most powerful statements in newspaper history. Newsjunkie Managing Editor Peter Landau spoke with Whiting about Goenka's legacy, the challenges of researching historical events in the age of AI, and what publishers can teach us about democracy.

How did you first come across Ramnath Goenka, and what was it about his story that made you feel it was worth telling to a modern audience?

Ramnath Goenka is a big figure in India, but not so well known in America or around the world, although he should be. I knew about the Ramnath Goenka Journalism Awards, but only the name. A few years ago, we started researching newspapers in India and came across The Indian Express and The New Indian Express. We learned they were owned by the Goenka family and began to understand his role in establishing the modern press in India, his work as a freedom fighter, and his remarkable life story.

The image that stays with readers is that blank editorial column. Why do you think that silent act of resistance was more powerful than publishing an editorial condemning censorship?

Well, this is one of the incidents most closely associated with Goenka's career. Following Indira Gandhi's declaration of Emergency in 1975, strict censorship rules were imposed on the press. Journalists and political opponents were jailed, civil liberties were suspended, and India entered a period of emergency rule that lasted more than a year and a half.

Being his own man, Goenka wanted to respond. In the first issue after these restrictions were imposed, he published the newspaper's editorial space exactly as usual—except the editorial itself was missing. It was simply a blank two-column space.

Any written protest would almost certainly have been blocked, modified, or removed by the censors. Publishing the blank space was clever, but I think the real significance lies elsewhere. He knew there would be consequences. What he didn't know was how severe those consequences might be. That willingness to act anyway—that was courage.

What qualities do you see in Goenka that are especially relevant to journalism today?

His devotion to the public and to the public's right to good journalism.

Today we have a saturated media environment with many good journalists and many good publications. But we also have journalists who are reluctant to say what they know because they want to preserve access. They don't want to lose the ability to speak to a senator, a president, or an influential business leader.

That becomes a form of brand management, and I think it's corrosive. Goenka had a brand too, but it was built on integrity. That's a much better kind of brand.

One of the fascinating things about this story is that it could only happen in print. A blank space in a newspaper is impossible to ignore. Do you think there's an equivalent act of resistance in digital journalism today, or was there something unique about the physical newspaper that made Goenka's protest so effective?

In 1975, print was dominant. There were multiple newspapers, of course, and there was radio and television, but newspapers occupied a central place in public life.

If a newspaper did something dramatic, millions of people would see it, and it carried a certain weight.

Today there are many popular platforms—TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, traditional newspapers, and countless others. There are important truth-tellers working across all of them. But we're swimming in information. Even when something is genuinely important, it's diluted by the sheer volume of content surrounding it.

It's one more thing in an endless stream of things.

That's not necessarily a criticism. Media changes. Every era has its own forms. But I don't think there is a direct equivalent to what Goenka did. It was a singular act, made possible by a singular medium.

While researching this piece, you ran into conflicting accounts online and even had difficulty getting AI tools to substantiate some of the details. What was that process like, and what does it say about the current state of historical information on the internet?

That could be an entire podcast on its own.

We're all using the tools available to us, and the digital world has given us extraordinary research capabilities. But the level of information pollution is becoming quite severe.

AI is part of that problem because it can easily regenerate information that was incorrect in the first place. A mistake published on a blog—or even in a respected publication—can be repeated over and over until it begins to look authoritative.

I don't want to get into all the specifics here, but in researching this story I found conflicting accounts from sources that are generally considered reliable. Eventually I had to step away from the digital world and go back to books, libraries, and primary sources to verify details.

I would caution everyone: the internet can provide a tremendous amount of seemingly rich information, but there are also a tremendous number of errors hiding in plain sight. In this case, some of those errors came from accepted sources. Why? That's something we're going to examine further at Newsjunkie.

Let's put it charitably: there's a lot of lazy work being published.

As someone who writes frequently about newspapers and civilization, what did Goenka's story teach you about the relationship between publishers and democracy?

It reinforced the idea that news is more than a utility and more than entertainment. It's part of democracy itself.

The article also touches on Goenka's actions during the British Raj, when Gandhi and Nehru were imprisoned. He took actions that carried enormous personal risk. Imprisonment was possible. Death was possible.

While researching the story, I was reminded of a visit I made years ago to Independence Hall in Philadelphia. A National Park Service guide pointed to the signatures on the Declaration of Independence and asked what would have happened if the British had discovered the signers before the Revolution succeeded.

Nobody answered.

I said, "They would have been arrested and jailed."

The guide looked around the room and replied, "They would have been hanged."

Goenka didn't know what would happen to him. We only know the outcome because we're looking backward.

Hindsight is 20/20, but if Goenka were alive today and running a newspaper, what do you think he would be fighting for—or fighting against?

Good question.

I think he would be fighting the corruption of reality itself. He wouldn't have tolerated alternative facts, spin, or the deliberate manipulation of truth.

That would have been his meat and potatoes. He would have gone after it relentlessly.