Jim Bradley doesn't respond to requests for an interview about the Mess at the NHS

Finally, a Niagara reporter - John Robbins, in his report about the NHS ("Minister defends restructuring", Niagara This Week, Jan.21, 2011) - actually wrote this as part of his story:

"St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, the minister of community safety and correctional services and Niagara’s presence within the provincial cabinet, has not responded to requests for an interview."

Wow - Jimmy ain't gonna like having some scribe including that as part of a major health-care story!!!! Jimmy likes the media to swing his way - or, just to not mention him - whichever makes him look better!

This reporter had the decency (and somehow it wasn't edited out, either!) to actually tell his readers that bigshot Jim Bradley was asked for a comment, but didn't respond.

Bloody strange that Jimmy's missing in action - again - when all this NHS drama is unfolding, and when constituents need to know what is going on. It's about time Bradley was outed by reporters on every occasion in which he is asked, and then declines, to make himself available for a comment.

Usually, as we've seen time and again at the St. Catharines Standard, it seems like everyone else in the world EXCEPT Good Ole Jimmy are interviewed on stories that are of local/provincial significance. Jimmy's often mysteriously unavailable!

Jim Bradley has had a pretty easy ride over the decades with a way-too-indulgent, almost fawning press, where readers don't even see Bradley's name (or often even the word Liberal!) in stories of provincial importance which could be detrimental to him; and readers aren't even told whether Bradley - the local MPP and McGuinty cabinet minister - was ever contacted!!

Let's hope that it becomes a trend, not a hiccup, that, in the absence of any comments from Bradley, reporters and their editors at least inform readers whether Bradley was contacted. The standard operating procedure for years when it came to Jimmy was to slough this off - either we saw Bradley portrayed in a good light, or, he wouldn't be mentioned at all. We wouldn't be told whether anyone had even bothered to ask for a comment.

It's time the local press started asking, and Jim Bradley started answering, some tough - not fluff - questions, for a change.
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