Conscious reportability of visual input is associated with a bimodal neural response in primary visual cortex (V1): an early-latency response coupled to stimulus features and a late-latency response coupled to stimulus report or detection. This late wave of activity, central to major theories of consciousness, is thought to be driven by prefrontal cortex (PFC), responsible for "igniting" it. Here we analyzed two electrophysiological studies in mice performing different stimulus detection tasks, and characterize neural activity profiles in three key cortical regions: V1, posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and PFC. We then developed a minimal network model, constrained by known connectivity between these regions, reproducing the spatio-temporal propagation of visual- and report-related activity. Remarkably, while PFC was indeed necessary to generate report-related activity in V1, this occurred only through the mediation of PPC. PPC, and not PFC, had the final veto in enabling the report-related late wave of V1 activity.Significance statement A long-standing objective in the study of consciousness is to characterize the neural signatures of perceived compared to non-perceived sensory stimuli. In particular, the role of different cortical areas in the generation of consciousness is actively debate. Here we combined electrophysiological and modeling studies to investigate the mechanistic role of individual connections between brain regions in the generation of the activity patterns observed during conscious report. We found that, while frontal areas initiate report-related activity, parietal cortex acts as a gate to determine whether such activity will propagate back to visual cortex. This division of labor between prefrontal and parietal cortices is unexplained by current theoretical models of consciousness and therefore should strongly impact mechanistic neural models of conscious report.