‘We have to be able to ask tough questions’: Who actually took the famous napalm girl photo? | Documentaries

IIt’s one of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century: a naked girl—arms wide, face contorted, skin burned and peeling—runs toward the camera as she escapes a napalm attack in South Vietnam. To her right, a boy’s face frozen in the mask of pain of Greek tragedy. To her left, two other Vietnamese children flee the bombed village of Trang Bang. Behind them was an indistinguishable group of soldiers, and behind them a wall of black smoke.

Within hours of its publication in June 1972, the image, officially titled The Terror of War but colloquially known as Napalm Girl, went viral as a representation of the virus; It has been viewed and discussed by millions of people around the world, and is widely credited with galvanizing public opinion against the US war in Vietnam. Susan Sontag later wrote that the horrific, indelible image of nine-year-old Kim Phuc in distress “probably did more to heighten public revulsion against the war than a hundred hours of televised barbarity.” Sir Don McCullin, the legendary British photojournalist who covered the conflict, considered it the single best image of what would later be called the “TV War.” “Napalm Girl” is “simply one of the most important photographs ever taken, certainly of the Vietnam War,” said Gary Knight, a British photojournalist with decades of experience in combat photography.

For 53 years, the story of the napalm girl has been attributed to Huynh Cong “Nick” Oot, a 21-year-old South Vietnamese photojournalist who worked for the Associated Press in Saigon. But a controversial new Netflix documentary argues that the iconic photo long considered the pinnacle of war journalism — one that brought home a Pulitzer Prize, amid other international acclaim — was actually taken by a different man who was on the scene in Trang Bang that day.

According to The Stringer, directed by Bao Nguyen and narrated by Knight, the “horror of war” was actually captured by an independent journalist, or “stringer,” who sold his photographs to the Associated Press. This claim and the film’s subsequent investigation originated with a man named Carl Robinson, a former AP photo editor in Saigon who claims that Horst Vaas, the bureau’s legendary autocratic chief of photography, ordered him to change the photo credit from Stringer to Ott, the only AP staff photographer on site that day.

Robinson, now in his 80s, emailed Knight out of the blue in 2022, asking for a journalist’s help in finding the anonymous photographer — and saying that if he were still alive, he wanted to issue an apology. Knight thought about the freelance photojournalists he met through his non-profit, VII Foundation – “Today’s Reporters,” who, like Vietnamese freelance photographers during the war, “are often overlooked. Their work is often questioned.

“How would it feel to be the guy who took that picture,” Knight asked, “if Nick Ut hadn’t actually taken it?” As a photographer, imagine it would be very painful. As a student of photojournalism, especially Vietnam War photography, this would be earth-shattering, and perhaps even reputation-threatening. The image’s sacred legacy among Vietnamese Americans is such that Nguyen, whose parents emigrated during the war, was reluctant to accept the project. “I didn’t want to disrupt this long-standing narrative that Nick took the photo,” he said. “And I didn’t want to disrupt the status quo of a community that was always looking forward to this accomplishment.”

But both Knight and Nguyen agreed it was worth asking the question. “If journalists are going to hold everyone else in the world accountable, we have to be able to ask ourselves tough questions,” Knight said.

The Stringer follows Knight, along with fellow journalists Fiona Turner, Terry Lichstein, and Lee Fan, as they pursue their own investigations, from eyewitness interviews, to callbacks in present-day Ho Chi Minh City, to archival research from other footage captured that day (the filmmakers say they were not granted access to the AP archives). Their efforts eventually yielded a name: Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, an NBC driver of the day who occasionally sold photos to international media outlets as a freelance journalist. In the film, Nghi, also now in his 80s and living in California, testifies that he sold the photo to the AP for $20 and a print, but was haunted by a lack of credit for decades.

In the film, Nghi appears reserved and thoughtful, but his story has proven controversial in the world of photojournalism. Days before the premiere of The Stringer at the Sundance Film Festival in January — at which an emotional Nguy appeared as a surprise guest, confirming through a translator that I “took the photo” — the AP published a lengthy report questioning the film’s narrative through its internal analysis, describing Robinson as a “disgruntled” former employee, standing by Ott, who retired from a distinguished career with the organization in 2017. Photojournalists rejected Nguy’s claim outright, and campaigned against the film’s distribution; Others expressed concern, in the current political environment, about any challenge to the credibility of journalism. “We had people suggest we drop the investigation because it was a bad time for journalism,” Knight recalls. “But when is there a good time?”

“The investigation must be independent of these types of concerns,” he added. “The self-examination process may be uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.”

In May, the AP released a more comprehensive report and visual analysis that included new insights — for example, as reported in The Stringer, the photo may have been taken with a Pentax camera, not a Leica as Ott has long claimed. The internal study, which was based on “extensive visual analysis, interviews with witnesses and examination of all available photographs”, concluded that it was “possible” that the photo was not taken. The AP said: “None of this material proves that anyone else did this,” so the results did not meet the “conclusive proof” required by its credit-altering standards. (Út, who declined to participate in The Stringer, has flatly denied the film’s claims, maintained his authorship, and threatened to sue for libel.)

Days later, World Press Photo, which awarded Napalm Girl its 1973 Photo of the Year award, released its own independent investigation concluding that two people – Nghi and photographer Hunh Cong Phuc – were in a better position to take the photo. The organization revoked Ott’s accreditation, but left the official authorship unknown, with the open statement: “This remains a disputed date, and it is possible that the authorship of the image will never be fully confirmed.”

The findings of both investigations, including details from the AP archives, were used to improve the film’s forensic analysis, which was independently conducted by the French NGO Index. The final version, updated from the version shown at Sundance, found that based on photos taken that day, an AP photographer would have had to quickly run about 560 feet forward, take the famous shot, then run back 250 feet, then turn around to be seen walking toward NBC News photographers — “an absolutely implausible scenario.” They concluded that Nghi was in the right position to shoot.

To outsiders, all this may seem like a fine haircut, unnecessarily poring over minute details second by second, frame by frame, meter by meter to obtain an image whose originality and importance remain beyond doubt. In fact, reading each report, with its details and assumptions, can feel more confusing than clarifying. But the filmmakers stress that The Stringer’s quest was never about formal retaliation, but rather, honest reappraisal. Nguyen sees Nguy as part of “a generation of Vietnamese who left their lives behind, quietly carrying their stories,” and who “still believe they don’t have the ability and space to talk about their stories from the past. In many ways, this film was about reclaiming that space, for the dignity, truth, and memory that is often neglected.”

He added: “I have the utmost respect for the Associated Press and the news organizations that have supported journalism for more than a century.” “So I hope that we can all look deep within ourselves and have a reckoning when it is necessary.”

The Stringer posits a number of overlapping and ambiguous factors for the alleged misattribution: that the Saigon office was cutthroat and competitive; And that reporters work on the margins of the profession; that Vas felt some guilt over sending Út’s older brother, Huỳnh Thanh Mỹ, to his death on an AP combat mission in 1965; Vass could get away with keeping credit within the company because Vietnamese journalists—particularly non-employees like Ngo—were, in Knight’s words, “strangers in their own country” without influence or recourse.

Knight cited a recent event with journalists in London, where he asked attendees if they knew the names of any Vietnamese war journalists besides Nick Ut. None of them did. “To be fair, I couldn’t name anyone other than Nick Utt before I started this story, and I’m a student of that war,” he said. But dozens and dozens of them were working in the foreign press.”

Part of the film’s mission, he said, is to reconsider the narrative of history — how the story is told, who tells it, and who gets credit. “Vietnamese journalists have effectively been erased from the narrative of their war,” Knight said. “And I hope that this story will not only begin to redress the balance a little, but will also require the public to examine who is telling today’s stories, and where the power structures in journalism lie.”

Both Nguyen and Knight stated, for the record, that they had little doubt as to the author of the famous photo. But regardless of one’s point of view, Nguyen said, “I hope people come to see the film with an open heart and an open mind. I think individuals like Nguyen deserve it.”