The BBC has admitted that Katty Kay, its US special correspondent, breached the corporation's impartiality rules by referring to a "genocide" in Gaza while co-hosting a podcast produced by Gary Lineker's company Goalhanger. The broadcaster said her wording made it sound as though she was endorsing the description as her own view rather than attributing it to others, a lapse it accepted fell short of its editorial standards even though the podcast was not a BBC production. The episode adds to a string of impartiality controversies at the BBC, coming as new director-general Matt Brittin has pledged to tackle such issues since taking over in May.

Kay, 61, made the remark last month on The Rest Is Politics: US, which she co-presents with former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, saying Democratic anger partly stemmed from "the genocide that is being committed" in Gaza. Following a listener complaint, the BBC said she had intended to attribute the "genocide" characterisation to certain Democrats but failed to make this clear, and that she regretted the lack of clarity. The row follows Lineker's own departure from the BBC last year after impartiality breaches, and comes months after director-general Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness resigned over a Panorama documentary that misleadingly edited a Donald Trump speech, amid separate warnings of "systemic issues" in the BBC's Gaza coverage.