Barber: Guardian exposed phone hacking 'lie'

Financial Times editor Lionel Barber (pictured) has kept up his criticism of the majority of the national newspaper industry for failing to cover the News of the World phone hacking story.

Barber, interviewed on BBC Radio 4's World at One by Martha Kearney, said "The Guardian consistently led on exposing a lie that it [phone hacking] was down to one lone actor at the News of the World."

He also claimed the Press Complaints Commission "consistently turned a blind eye", ignored what the Guardian was reporting and dismissed it as exaggerated.

PCC chair Baroness Peta Buscombe told Kearney the Commission was "extremely concerned" about phone hacking and welcomed the new police investigation. She said: "The frustration for us is that the Commission can't comment on matters being investigated by the police or ongoing legal proceedings."

Buscombe also said a new committee set-up by the PCC to look into phone hacking would see what lessons could be learned and try and ensure the industry "steps up to the plate".

• Barber was interviewed following his Annual Hugh Cudlipp Lecture at the London College of Communication last night, in which he accused most of the national press of a "conspiracy of silence" over the phone hacking story. (Pic: Jon Slattery)