At the risk of boring you to tears, dear subscriber, I thought I should inform you and the historical record that I reluctantly made one last attempt to get The Mail to correct its shonky spornosexual feature… correctly:
Dear Sir/Madam,
Thanks for your reply and your update.
However, your article remains inaccurate, and somewhat confused/confusing.
It still refers in the second and third paragraphs to spornosexual as 'a vintage moniker from the 90s' and states that the name was 'first understood to be coined in [sic] some 30 years ago'.
To reiterate what I stated in my previous email, with supporting screenshots/references:
‘According to multiple sources, including those mentioned in your feature, I coined the term 'metrosexual' in 1994. And 'spornosexual' in 2014 not in "the 1990s" as your article states.’
I received a prompt, apologetic reply - this time not from an anonymous 'Mail Editorial' account as previously, but from a named chap - one who is, moreover, 'Global Head of Compliance, Online Publications'. Which sounds important.
And ‘legal’.
He proved very helpful and professional.
'Dear Mr Simpson
I’m sorry that you have had cause to write to us again. I agree that the article as amended was entirely unclear and made very little sense. I have made some clarifying changes which should properly and sensibly attribute the phrases to you, at the appropriate dates, and I apologise for the confusion caused.
I have also raised the matter to the reporter’s editor for her awareness.
I trust that this should address your concerns, however if I can be of further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me directly.'
I replied that I appreciated his corrections and clarifications. Here's the corrected section from the updated article:
As you can see, it is not only accurate now but also in English. It's also nice - but entirely appropriate - that my name is now mentioned twice.
It may be indicative of the state of legacy media today, even at at a paper that, unlike many, survived and even thrived on the transition to 'online', that the (very young-looking) author of the original, confused, inaccurate and badly-written feature is described on the Mail website as a 'Senior Femail Reporter'.
