WASHINGTON: This summer, many journalists seem to be in hot pursuit of the Bush administration. But they have an enormous amount of ground to cover. After routinely lagging behind and detouring around key information, major American news outlets are now playing catch-up.

The default position of US media coverage gave the White House the benefit of doubts. In stark contrast, the British media has been far more vigorous in exposing deceptions about Iraq. Consider the work of two publicly subsidized broadcasters: The BBC News has broken very important stories to boost public knowledge of governmental duplicities; the same can hardly be said for NPR News in the US.

One of the main problems with American reporting has been reflexive deference toward pivotal administration players such as Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Chronic over-reliance on official sources worsened for a long time after 9/11, with journalists failing to scrutinize contradictions, false statements and leaps of illogic.

Powell’s watershed speech to the UN Security Council in February was so effective at home because journalists swooned rather than drawing on basic debunking information that was readily available at the time. To a great extent, reporters on this side of the Atlantic provided stenography for top US officials, while editorial writers and pundits lavished praise.

The most deferential coverage has been devoted to the president himself, with news outlets treating countless potential firestorms as minor sparks or one-day brush fires. Even now, George W. Bush is benefiting from presumptions of best intentions and essential honesty — a present-day “Teflonization” of the man in the Oval Office.

Contradictions have become more glaring at a time when the war’s rising death toll already includes thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of Americans. Many US news organizations are beginning to piece together a grim picture of deceit in Washington and lethal consequences in Iraq. The combination foreshadows a difficult media gauntlet for Bush.

Another key political vulnerability that remains underreported is the economy. Its woes persist in the context of a huge gap between the wealthy and most other Americans — a gap that is set to widen still further due to the latest round of White House tax changes and spending priorities. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) Newsday