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THE quadrennial American political cycle is reaching its peak. The party conventions are in full swing, balloons and all, and the election itself is a mere three months away. The Washington press corps has its diary full until November.

We all have our preconceptions about the life of a hack in DC, established by All The Presidents' Men - Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein chasing sources in dark garages - and the endless films showing the press pack in pursuit of a hapless flack in the White House press room. But the life of a British correspondent in America sometimes fails to live up to these glamorous stereotypes.

For a start, the timing of the main press conferences in Washington - in the early afternoon, when most correspondents are finishing off their first-edition stories - means that most of the time, writers are stuck in their offices watching CNN rather than pushing to get a seat at the front of the White House press room. The time difference means that on a busy day, it's a race just to get all the copy through by lunchtime.

Once there, it's easy enough to get a question in to the President's spokesman, after the mainstream American press have had their fill.

Try to get anyone on the telephone, however, and it's another story.

For most British hacks most of the time, the great struggle is to get a call returned before deadline - or sometimes just to get a call returned at all. You can spend a whole day speaking to voicemail without hearing a live human.

In the days of yore, British correspondents in Washington ascended into the life of the perpetual ruling class of the city. The older generation of correspondents - Henry Brandon of The Sunday Times is perhaps the best example - became players in the Great Game, trading gossip and insight in exchange for access. Brandon was probably not exceptional; a former colleague who has served in Washington on and off for decades was in town last week, and over generous quantities of gin martini at Billy Martin's Tavern in Georgetown, was full of tales of the great days of the Vietnam War, civil rights and the officials who struggled to deal with both.

It is a different story these days.

A few correspondents - such as Martin Walker, formerly of The Guardian - made something of an impact, but most of the time the British press are marginal players. Part of the reason is the explosion of media in America. At the Republican Convention in Philadelphia last week, there were 16,000 journalists. Once, the Brits figured somewhere below the networks and the major city dailies (New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and so on). Now you must add internet organisations and the 24-hour news networks to the list of media outlets fighting for a place at the table.

AND being a Brit is not what it was. With the Cold War over and Britain's status reduced, an Oxford accent won't get you past the secretary the way it once would. The fact that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton are so close probably harms rather than helps the hack: the White House doesn't need the British press to get its message across to London and, since it can depend on Downing Street to follow behind happily behind on most policy issues, there's not much reason to court the Brits. Do American papers get any better treatment in London? If the vast spread about Blair produced by New York Times correspondent Warren Hoge in the paper's magazine a few months ago is anything to go by, the answer is yes. It is simply unthinkable that a British correspondent would get equal time with the President.

One undeniable fact is that while the world has changed - the end of the Cold War and so on - so has the life of a Washington correspondent. Life no longer revolves around missile deployments and high politics; most now spend as much time on culture, entertainment and social change, as on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So few have the time or the inclination to insert themselves into the higher reaches of politics, even if they could get in.

And the Americans themselves have less time for foreigners in general. The country is going through a great love affair with itself, a narcissism born of prosperity and peace, which shows few signs of ending.

They are simply less bothered about what the rest of the world thinks of them, and their own thoughts about the rest of the world don't tend to be particularly trenchant or interesting. It is not just British journalists who complain of calls unreturned from the State Department or the National Security Council; interestingly, so do some British diplomats. The Congress is dominated by the Republicans, many of whom regard foreign nationality as a mark of Satan - and, whereas the Brits were once regarded as honourable Anglo- Saxons, the Rightwing conservatives make no exceptions.

Does all of this mean that the average hack spends his time twiddling his or her thumbs and rewriting the Washington Post? Up to a point. For a start, the explosion of the internet and news television has brought about a deluge of information. You can watch virtually every press conference live, either on CNN, C-SPAN or the web. And the city has a vast assembly of think-tankers, analysts, wannabes and has-beens who circulate through the administration.

There is even the occasional accessible official. As for the rest, well, there's always voicemail.

Andrew Marshall, Washington bureau chief of The Independent, is returning to London to be managing editor of ecountries.com, a global news website.

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