Promoting the Euroregion from within

For a newcomer to Maastricht, as I am, meeting Stafford Wadsworth is an intriguing prospect. A selfmade expert on the region, whose website is a source of local wisdom, he is full of enthusiasm for the place. Indeed, when I met him in Café Zuid he was reading the local paper, taking it in over a cold Maastricht beer.

Crossroads: How did the Meuse-Rhine Journal develop?
Stafford Wadsworth: Soon after arriving here, I began to work for the province’s publication ‘Limburg International Magazine’. The paper was designed to attract inbound investment to the region. I had contact with them in 1983 and 1986. In 1989, I became editor-in-chief and stayed for ten years, until 1999, and must have covered every major business in the province, and those just across the border, in this period. This was the basis of my work, before the website and the newsletter.

Crossroads: What do you see as the journal’s most important contribution?
SW: From a journalistic point of view, business in these areas finds it difficult. If you are a big business you get your news in the big financial papers, but what happens if you are a medium-sized firm? There is highly innovative business in these areas and the journal is a place to write about it, a place to share information. There are many analogous things going on in business in the sub-regions.

For instance, companies involved in the same type of business might be next door to one another across the border but just not know it. The region needs to be better promoted. For instance, tourists flock to the castles of the Loire or to wellness spas elsewhere. What people don’t recognise is that this region has both and has had them for centuries. It is a gastronomic paradise, too.

Crossroads: Who is the journal aimed at and reaching?
SW: It is both for insiders and the outsiders. Of course for outsiders primarily since it is written in English, but for insiders, too. My role as a journalist is to help the various parts of the region communicate with each other. The journalist attracting a lot of readers without any advertising or without metatags. It is quoted by people and read by decision-makers in various subparts of the Euroregion; though, it still has to achieve its full potential.

Crossroads: What are your future plans for the journal?
SW: The long-term plans for the journal are to update the homepage more frequently. Searchable archives will also be coming along soon. Another thing I would like to do is to archive interviews that I have done over the last 20 years with major players in the region and make them available on the site. Finally, I would like to produce video clips (webcasts) lasting 2 or 3 minutes, giving business people the opportunity to say what they want to without direct journalistic mediation.

By Christina Michael

Biography
Stafford Wadsworth is the founder of Wadsworth Media Consultants, active since 1983, which provides specialised information on cutting-edge business in logistics, the life sciences and performance materials in the Meuse-Rhine region. In addition, it publishes the Meuse-Rhine Journal- a biweekly newsletter covering the Euroregion Meuse-Rhine.

Source: Crossroads, print issue September 2004