Russel Pergament (pictured) says he didn't start the free daily BostonNow in order to get revenge on Metro Boston, the paper he started in 2001 and left in 2003. He tells Boston's Phoenix, an alt-weekly, that he quit Metro: “It stopped being fun. ... If you don’t speak Swedish, they’re a bit of a talent repellent. I’ll say that for the record. What the f*%@.” Besides taking on Metro, he hopes to develop a new newspaper business model and reejoin his wife and son in nearby Newton after commuting to New York for three years where he headed Tribune's amNewYork. Pergament is CEO of 365 Media USA, the American media arm of Iceland's phone company, Dagsbrún, which hopes to have 10-12 free dailies in major U.S. cities one day. Photo by Matt Teuten from The Phoenix. At left is Thursday's edition of BostonNow.
