PAPER TIGER

I wish I could remember whom I bet that Gray Davis would survive the recall and stay governor of California. What quickly seemed reckless, although I couldn’t remember what I’d bet, either, now seems canny -- almost punditlike.

Feeling my oats, now, I’m going to go out on a limb and go double or nothing with every living person on Earth that the new venture by Russell Pergament, a driving force behind the local Tab and Metro papers, has no teeth: It will not make it from New York to Boston.

With the backing of the Tribune Co., Pergament is vowing to create a free, five-day daily newspaper for 18-to-34-year-olds in Manhattan. Little else is known about it, except that Pergament hopes to grow it to other communities with similar demographics and mass transit systems. He has the power to gain Tribune Co. backing because of his past successes, including the Metro, which is described as having a 166,000 circulation in the greater Boston area.

Not only do I say amNewYork, the new publication, will not make it out of New York, thanks to the quality of the competition there; but also that were it to make to Boston, it would find no purchase (so to speak), thanks especially to Pergament’s success establishing the Metro. He wants hawkers to hand out free copies of a fast-reading tabloid newspaper aimed at advertisers’ key demographic? He’s going to have to find a way to differentiate it from his Metro, with its hawkers handing out free copies of a fast-reading tabloid newspaper aimed at advertisers’ key demographic.