Substack<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\tAfter establishing a relationship with Banksy\u2019s team while covering the artist\u2019s residency in NYC in 2013 for the broadcaster, Bryant said he \u201ckept in touch with his PR team.\u201d <\/p>\n
\n\tA few years had passed when \u201cone morning in March 2018, I was awoken by a phone call from Britain. Banksy\u2019s PR team wanted to give me a heads-up. That day, he would unveil a fresh artwork somewhere in New York,\u201d Bryant wrote.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe reporter later learned that the location of Banksy\u2019s new artwork would be at Lower Manhattan\u2019s The Houston Bowery Wall, a well-established outdoor mural space known for showcasing international street art by renowned artists.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOur bureau in Lower Manhattan was not far away. We got there quickly, beating everyone to the punch,\u201d Bryant wrote. However, the reporter said he was surprised to see that the mural featured an image of Kurdish artist Zehra Dogan, who was imprisoned by the Turkish authorities, as he was anticipating Banksy to deliver his take on President Donald Trump, amid his first term in the White House.<\/p>\n
\n\tBefore informing his BBC colleagues in London, Bryant said, \u201cWe noticed a security guard wearing a fluorescent yellow jacket patrolling the sidewalk\u201d near the site. After striking up a conversation with him, the security guard said the artist \u201ctold him crowds would soon descend. The media, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat\u2019s when Bryant asked him what Banksy looked like. \u201cWithout missing a beat, he pointed to a cafe over the road, where a middle-aged man wearing a black beanie and a dishevelled grey coat was just leaving with a piping hot takeaway coffee. That, he said, was the artist. His young female assistant was walking, jauntily, alongside,\u201d Bryant wrote.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe reporter and his cameraman then took off running after the artist and his assistant, but they quickly jumped in a car and \u201cfloored it,\u201d he wrote, adding, \u201cWe filmed him speeding down Houston Street.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBryant said he called his bosses in Washington and London to inform them of the \u201cworld exclusive\u201d they had just captured. \u201cWe had caught Banksy in the act. The man we had filmed even had fresh paint on his fingers,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\n\tHowever, the reporter noted that he was met with an \u201cinstitutional and personal dilemma,\u201d as he \u201cdid not want to be the journalist who revealed his identity. It would compromise his future work and blunt his political edge.\u201d But on the other hand, \u201cJournalists are not in the suppression business.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAs Bryant was weighing both perspectives, he said that \u201ca phone call came through from London.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cA senior colleague told me that his daughter had accompanied him to work that day, and thought it was wrong to unveil Banksy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe should not be the news organization, she reckoned, to tell kids there was no Father Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tHe continued, \u201cThe BBC\u2019s then arts editor entered the fray, explaining that whenever he asked audiences if they wanted to find out Banksy\u2019s true identity, they all cried out no. In a culture fixated by fame, namelessness evidently held an even higher currency. The BBC\u2019s then head of news agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the end, Bryant said the U.K. broadcaster \u201cburied the footage\u201d of the famed artist.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Hollywood Reporter<\/em> reached out to the BBC for comment.<\/p>\n\n\tFor years, people and media outlets have been trying to unmask Banksy. Earlier this year, Reuters<\/em>\u00a0claimed it unveiled the artist\u2019s real identity<\/a>, saying that the person behind the art is Robin Gunningham, who allegedly changed his name to David Jones some years ago. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former BBC reporter is claiming that the U.K. broadcaster \u201cburied\u201d footage that he captured of Banksy at one of his mural sites in New York City. Nick Bryant, who previously served as the BBC\u2019s New York correspondent, detailed his encounter with the anonymous British street artist and political activist in a recent post on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5029,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[4613,4610,4611,127,4612,4614,1896,4616,4615],"class_list":{"0":"post-5028","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fashion","8":"tag-banksy","9":"tag-bbc","10":"tag-buried","11":"tag-claims","12":"tag-footage","13":"tag-mural","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-reporter","16":"tag-site"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5030,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028\/revisions\/5030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}