Retail media networks were built on a powerful premise: retailers sitting on rich first-party data and captive audiences could become media businesses in their own right. But somewhere between that promise and the reality of execution, a tension emerged. The more an RMN optimizes for ad revenue, the more it risks drifting from the merchant priorities—inventory health, margins, long-term category growth—that made it valuable in the first place. Brands are noticing, and some are pulling back investment. A few retailers are restructuring to bring their RMN and merchant teams into alignment, but there's no consensus on how to do it without hurting the media business they've worked hard to build. This roundtable asks the multi-million-dollar question at the center of it all: can a retailer truly be a publisher, or does trying to be both undermine each?