Local internet is starting to carve out a real identity online, following pioneers like Vianice, the Journal de Nice, and Le Vieux Nice. Nowadays, multiple virtual information sources are regularly welcoming newcomers.
The latest addition is the new monthly web magazine created by Patrick Mottard and Michèle Bondi: www.niactv.com, also known as Nice Alpha Canal. This new political site, which aims to be a participatory media platform, offers a monthly feature, with the first topic being housing in the Alpes-Maritimes. Other sections include a monthly profile, which features Claire Legendre who is releasing her latest book “The Stanislavski Method”, an editorial initiated by the host, Patrick Mottard, and a comic strip recounting the life of a neighborhood, this month featuring La Libé.
So, another political media outlet, but why, for whom, and how? These are the questions we posed to the instigator, Patrick Mottard.
Nice Première: Patrick Mottard, could you introduce us to this new Nice website www.niactv.com?
Patrick Mottard: NiacTV is a reflective site modeled on a monthly magazine, featuring in-depth topics and local columns, a touch of humor, and a dash of mood.
In its format, it largely utilizes sound and image to encourage direct expression. Furthermore, in an effort to maintain transparency and honesty, there was no question of proceeding incognito, and that is why I took responsibility for editing Nice Alpha Canal, with Michèle Bondi handling the essential aspect—namely, the technical and aesthetic perspective of our editorial line.
NP: A website, a blog, NiacTV… You’re establishing yourself online?
PM: A website (https://www.patrick-mottard.org) to publicize my activities as an elected official and political activist. A blog (https://patrickmottard.blogspot.com) for a subjective view of not only local news.
And now Niac TV to enrich the debate of ideas. Three complementary tools to best use the opportunities provided by ICT to remain an active local representative.
NP: What can we find on NiacTV?
PM: Systematically an in-depth file (the first issue is dedicated to housing) + a report on a Nice neighborhood (this month, the Libé district) + the profile of the month (the novelist Claire Legendre) + a cultural section (including an interview with the band Lo Mago d’en casteu, a report on the Depardieu gallery, and the Fred Forest case, the future of the Mercury) + a news section (Nice City Council meeting, protest against the CPE, downloading…) and many other surprises such as a comic strip…
NP: NiacTV also involves Michèle Bondi, a few words about your partner?
PM: Michèle is a professional (she has made several films) who knows how to invest selflessly and friendly in a project she believes in. None of this would have been possible without her.
NP: What are your thoughts on the local web landscape?
PM: I appreciated Vianice, Salade Niçoise, and I appreciate Nice Première, quality generalist sites, therefore useful. I also find that there are a number of specialized sites that are remarkable, although I seldom have time to read them.
I think particularly of sites or blogs dedicated to culture and more specifically to cinema (you know my immoderate taste for the 7th art!). However, I am more than skeptical (and I explain this in my editorial on niacTV) about directly political sites: I have given up consulting them for a long time because I find some of them uninteresting (because they are not personal) and others grossly manipulative. But I notice with satisfaction that the internet community generally does not make a mistake…
NP: And from the media landscape (TV, Press, Radio)?
PM: Fortunately, in our region long impoverished in terms of media pluralism, things have still largely improved. For the print media, I particularly think of Nice-Matin and the journalists who report on local political life.
The PCA Hebdo, renamed Le Patriote, is still fulfilling its necessary role in favor of other information. For TV, the regional news edition of France 3 seems more open than that of the local journal of Nice. The M6 news segment is a plus with a different tone.
Radio France Bleue Azur is a good local media. Besides, the young journalists of TSF and RCF do an interesting job as well as the person responsible for the Nice page of Métro. As for Nice Television, it seems to want to make a (small) place for the opposition: case to follow…
NP: What is missing today in this landscape?
PM: A local TV channel in the style of Nice television… more open to debate.
NP: Finally, what are your thoughts on the Victorine Studios?
PM: The Victorine Studios are a major element of my plan “Nice City of Cinema” (with the enhancement of ESRA training, the development of the Film Commission, the cinematheque, and the Mercury space, soon hopefully managed by the CINEAC collective) that I will soon submit to debate, perhaps on niacTV… or Nice première (let’s not be sectarian!)
