Dissent enlightens the uninformed.

I have read with interest Alf Pratte's treatise on journalistic virtue, and I am surprised but not unhappy that The Freedom Forum steak so upset Alf's digestive system that he (not necessarily his digestive tract) was moved to assume the role of guardian of NCEW's conscience.

Frankly, before Alf's attack of indigestion I had heard nothing but praise for the program our First Amendment Center provided at the NCEW luncheon. (Nobody had mentioned the steak one way or the other.) One of the great values of dissent is that it enlightens the uninformed. Al Neuharth, for example, had no idea he had bought lunch for NCEW until Alf bit the hand that fed him.

From my perspective (and my guess is that Neuharth would agree) it is worth Alf's upset stomach to get the secretaries of the Navy and the Air Force and three general officers of the services to state publicly in front of NCEW's members that censorship of the news media in the next war will be impossible because of the developing technology. Every journalist will consider the military's record since Vietnam in weighing how the military will live with that - but at least it is a refreshing point of view and suggests a possible new era of openness on the part of the media and a new burden of media responsibility.

In the past I have had limited, positive journalistic contacts with Pratte. I have never heard that he intentionally misled his readers. As a result, I attribute his misleading comments about The Freedom Forum funding to his admitted dyspeptic disorder rather than journalistic bias.

Professional that he is, he would have cut his wrists with his quivering steak knife before reporting in error that the Foundation is funded by a media company. The Freedom Forum has been a completely independent non-profit institution for five years.

It is true that four of our trustees are proud to have been employed for many years by the Gannett Company, and three of them served on the old Gannet foundation board. It also is true that we still maintain close personal friendships with many former colleagues within Gannett.

But to suggest that the company has any official or format or funding link with the Foundation - and Pratte did more than suggest it - is just plain wrong.

Pratte's criticism aside, let me say that our Center's scholarly report was the work of two people - Admiral Bill Lawrence, a courageous naval officer who spent six years in a Vietnamese prison, and Frank Aukofer, a veteran, tough-minded journalist who went to the Persian Gulf to cover a war while Alf and I were home eating steak and potatoes.

Their year of research, their opinions, their expertise, and their report cannot be compromised by me, The Freedom Forum, the military, nor NCEW. Nor can the importance of their work be demeaned or denigrated by Alf Pratte's pietistic posturing.

In response to members of NCEW who have asked, Admiral Lawrence, after being in critical condition a few weeks ago, survived a second operation and is on the way to what appears to be a slow but positive road to recovery.

John Seigenthaler chairs The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.