In recent years, media bias has come to the forefront of the public discourse on the state of American journalism, with those in the field and regular citizens alike questioning the conservative or liberal bent of many high-profile publications.

But for many in the business, the question is better framed in terms “adversarial” or “deferential” when it comes to the relationships between the media and those in power.

Three top print journalists and one media scholar addressed this issue last night during a panel discussion entitled, “Adversarial of Deferential Journalism: Press Performance in the Post-9/11 Era.”

The panelists included Lance Bennett, director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington; James Fallows, a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly; Dana Priest, national security correspondent for The Washington Post; and Philip Taubman, the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The New York Times.

Taubman summed up the evening’s central question: “Are we lapdogs to the Bush administration or are we watchdogs?”

Not surprisingly, much of the symposium addressed the media’s coverage of President George W. Bush’s claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Few newspapers doggedly questioned his administration’s agenda, which some later publicly regretted. The Times, for instance, apologized to its readers in an editorial for its reporting on the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq: “Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged — or failed to emerge.”

The Post has been similarly criticized, but Priest defended the paper, arguing that some of its reporters challenged the weapons of mass destruction claims, but that these stories were glossed over by the Democratic Party in order to stir a more heated political debate.

Priest drew parallels between this situation and reporting done on the Central Intelligence Agency’s system of detainment, transportation and interrogation of suspected terrorists.

“It’s incredible to me and the others who wrote the stories that there has not been more public debate about these claims, especially in Congress,” she said.

Bennett argued that it may be impossible for the press to function properly in the absence of a strong opposition party.

He questioned whether national newspapers were too accepting of the Bush administration’s denial that Abu Ghraib was part of a larger, government-sanctioned system of torture.

“How much evidence does it take to call it ‘torture,’ instead of ‘a case of isolated and regrettable abuse’?” Bennett asked the audience.

Fallows suggested that news coverage in the last few years has been unduly influenced by the fact that the two cities targeted in the Sept. 11 attacks, New York and Washington, D.C., also happen to be “high citadels of the press.”

“If those attacks had come to other cities, we would not have seen The New Yorker magazine, the week before the war, publish a pro-war editorial,” Fallows said.

The three journalists all spoke of the difficulty in covering an administration that is minimally accessible to the press. Priest said that more and more government information has been classified for national security reasons.

Fallows pointed out that members of the administration frequently discount reported information simply because it comes from The Post or The Times.

“This is the first group of politicians I’ve seen that views the press as fundamentally illegitimate,” he said.

During the question-and-answer session, several members of the audience suggested that the media intentionally squelches stories that are critical of the administration, a claim that the three journalists strongly denied.

“The allegation that the media covers things up — I don’t understand,” Priest said. “Why? What would be the motive?”

Several audience members groaned when Fallows said his next story in The Atlantic Monthly will address the possibility that there might never be another Democratic president.