More forgettable news coverage

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Where does actor James Gandolfini go to eat out?

Editors Francis Scandale and Deirdre Sykes are so bored with snowstorms, they dismissed a couple of recent ones with a single photo and caption. Today, this week's big storm is front-page news in The Record of Woodland Park, but the superficial story is another forgettable effort. 

There are six photos on A-1 and A-18, but you won't find any pedestrians forced to walk in the street or bus patrons separated from their ride by mounds of snow. The Page 1 shot is interesting, but why did the editors give such prominent play to a car dealer and advertiser?

Six reporters contacted officials in only a handful of towns on snow clearing, road-salt use and related information. The vast majority of communities in the circulation area aren't represented. Nor are the experience of drivers, who found four-lane streets reduced to two lanes and uncleared corners, especially in Hackensack.

The best the editors could do for the rest of A-1 are two political stories. The lead, by Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, could have run anytime, but I guess Scandale was desperate.

Local yokels

The weekly Hackensack Chronicle continues to report residents' questions about budget transfers that were approved at a recent City Council meeting, but The Record's Hackensack reporter, Monsy Alvarado, hasn't covered a council meeting in many months and apparently doesn't have the word "budget" in her vocabulary.

Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais issues a "report card" on the German-owned Aldi supermarket, which opened recently in Clifton (L-7). It's hard to understand how he can rate the quality of the food B+, if there are no organic items offered.

I especially get a kick out of how he tested Aldi coffee and cookies on "newsroom colleagues, and all got a thumbs-up." What else does he expect from some of the biggest freeloaders in the world?

Under the continuation of DeMarrais' story on L-8, a brief on the sale of an Englewood liquor store is credited to Daniel "Dan" Sforza, who is second-in-command on the assignment desk under Sykes. That's sort of weird.

Bloody awful

Does Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung know anything more about steaks than "prime" and "aged"?

In Better Living today, she makes Del Monico in Cedar Grove sound awful -- especially the service, sanitation, burnt food and 30-page menu -- but still rates it Fair to Good (one and a half stars). 

Does that have anything to do with "Sopranos" actor James Gandolfini, an investor who knows enough not to eat there (at least during her three visits)? 

She never tell readers whether the $25.95 and $59.90 steaks she liked were raised naturally or given feed with antibiotics, growth hormones and bits of dead animals in it.