If you grew up watching a local newscast almost anywhere in America, you probably saw CNN without knowing it. The anchor in Fort Wayne or Fresno or Fargo would toss to a package on a hurricane, a Supreme Court ruling, or a war overseas, and the footage was often shot by a CNN crew thousands of miles away. Nobody announced it. A small credit sat in the corner of the frame, or none at all. It was invisible infrastructure, and it helped hold American local news together. Today, as a new corporate owner takes control of both CNN and CBS News, that infrastructure deserves a hard look. The threat is not technology or audience taste. It is ownership. The invisible wire CNN Newsource, the network's syndication arm, rested on a simple idea. A mid-sized station could not afford a Washington bureau, a correspondent in Baghdad, or a crew on the ground when an earthquake hit another continent. But it could pay a subscription fee and receive professional video and reporting, ...