This was the main story in yesterday's Daily Mail:

I first heard the news when I got contacted by the Daily Telegraph yesterday afternoon. They asked for a quote and wanted to record a Skype interview about how people can reduce junk mail (which I did). I didn't think much of the news and went out that evening for what turned out to be a highly entertaining chess match. Just when I got home at around half eleven I got a call from ITV, who wanted me to appear on a programme called Day Break at 6am in the morning. I reluctantly agreed and made the argument that although it's great that Royal Mail is making a decent profit again they should stop trying to make life difficult for people not interested in unsolicited leaflets delivered by the postman (they're not advertising the existence of the Door-to-Door Opt-Out; people who sign up to the scheme find it doesn't work; and the whole scheme is a load of cr*p anyway).

Anyway, it become a major news story. As always happens when junk mail is in the news I got calls from radio stations all over the country; Junk Buster was firing off opt-out e-mails by the second; and I sold a fair amount of stickers. In short, I've had an exciting 24 hours.

And yet, the news story is a complete fabrication.

That's right, there's no truth in it whatsoever. It would be easy for me to jump on the bandwagon and write about the terrible state our country is in, but the fact is that the story is complete and utter nonsense. Had the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph actually read the report and checked the facts with Royal Mail they would have learned that Royal Mail doesn't have data about how much addressed junk mail it distributes and that unaddressed mail has increased by a disappointing (from Royal Mail's perspective) 4%.

Both papers seem to have assumed that business mail is Royal Mail's preferred term for junk mail. It's not. Business mail certainly includes junk mail, but it also includes mail items such as bills and bank statements. When I spoke with Royal Mail this afternoon they seemed quite annoyed with the story, and for once I agree with them. It's appalling, sensationalist journalism.

One of the many people who contacted me yesterday is a journalism student who's writing an article about the story. I sure hope he'll learn something from it.