• Alleges that incorrect credit was given 

A new documentary that premiered on 25 January night disputes the authorship of one of the most famous press photographs ever taken, challenging 50-plus years of accepted history.

In ‘The Stringer’, directed by Bao Nguyen, a group of journalists and investigators claim that the photograph colloquially known as ‘Napalm Girl’ – an indelible image of American war in Vietnam that galvanised the anti-war movement in the United States (US) – was not taken by the Associated Press (AP) staff photographer Nick Ut as long-ascribed credit by the news group.

Officially titled ‘The Terror of War’, the image, taken on 8 June 1972, depicts a naked nine-year-old girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc as she and several crying, burned children flee a napalm attack in the South Vietnamese village of Trảng Bàng. The AP and Ut have long maintained that Ut, then 21 years old, took the photo, which earned him a Pulitzer prize, photojournalist fame and a distinguished career until his retirement from the AP in 2017.

But, ‘The Stringer’ presents a different story: that the iconic photograph was actually taken by another photographer on the scene that day: a Vietnamese driver for NBC who sold his photos to the AP as a freelancer or ‘stringer’, Nguyen Thành Nghe. The claim originates from a former AP Photo Editor in Saigon, Carl Robinson who alleges that the Bureau’s Chief of Photos at the time, Horst Faas ordered him to change credit for the image and ‘make it Nick Ut’ before sending out a picture that would be seen by millions within hours. Robinson claims that guilt over the misattribution haunted him for years, and that he was compelled at the age of 80 to find the discredited ‘stringer’. “I didn’t want to die before this story came out,” he said. “I wanted to find him and say sorry.” Robinson first contacted the documentary’s lead investigator and narrator and cofounder of the VII photo agency, Gary Knight, with the allegation in 2010. A little over a decade later, Knight and fellow journalists Fiona Turner, Terri Lichstein, and Lê Vân began investigating the claim, leading them to Nghe, who emigrated to the US and now lives in California. Nghe then confirms that he took the photo. “I worked hard for it, but that guy got to have it all,” he says. ‘The Stringer’ posits that Faas, who is described as complicated, dogmatic and imposing, falsely credited Ut because he was the only AP staff photographer on the ground that day, or because he felt guilt over sending Ut’s older brother, Huynh Thanh My, to his death on combat assignment for the AP in 1965. Knight and other film participants suggest that racism also played a role. “I don’t think that the AP would’ve done that to a western photographer,” Knight says. Faas could get away with the alleged misattribution because the Vietnamese – particularly non-employees such as Nghe – were “outsiders in their own country. They knew that no one would listen to them.”

The AP, which declined to participate in the project, disputed the allegations and maintained Ut’s authorship in a lengthy report released days before The Stringer’s premiere. “For the past six months, aware that a film challenging this historical record was in production, the AP has conducted its own painstaking research, which supports the historical account that Ut was the photographer,” the statement reads. “In the absence of new, convincing evidence to the contrary, the AP has no reason to believe that anyone other than Ut took the photo.” The AP asserts that it spoke to seven people on the road in Trảng Bàng or in its Saigon Bureau that day who were either not approached by the documentary team or declined to participate due to a requirement that they first sign a non-disclosure agreement. One witness claimed that the documentary team disputed his story and never contacted him again. In a 23-page report, the AP outlined its own research process, including its archive of negatives, oral histories, a visual timeline that “offers little evidence about the provenance of the photo”, eyewitness accounts and the fact that Robinson – described as a ‘disgruntled’ former employee – did not mention the story in his 2019 memoir.

According to the film-makers, Ut did not respond to multiple requests for comment. An attorney for Ut, James Hornstein told the Los Angeles Times that it is “outrageous that the VII Foundation has provided a platform to a man who clearly has a vendetta that’s been simmering for more than 50 years”. Hornstein also provided a statement from Phuc, who does not remember the napalm attack: “I have refused to participate in this outrageous and false attack on Ut raised by Robinson over the past years. I would never participate in the Knight film because I know it is false.”

The film enlists several witnesses to bolster Nghe’s account that he took the photo and sold it to Faas for US Dollars 20 and a print: Nghe’s brother, who claims he brought the film to the AP; Nghe’s daughter Jannie; Robinson, who says he felt he had no choice but to go along with the story and experienced great regret; and several of Robinson’s former photojournalist colleagues. The investigators also consult forensic experts with the French non-governmental organisation Index for their own compelling visual timeline, presented in full to the audience, which finds it ‘highly unlikely’ that Ut took the photo based on the other images that AP credited to him that day, and puts Nghe in the right position for the iconic shot.

Nguyen, Knight and Nghe defended the integrity of their investigation and account. “We owed it to everybody to be as diligent as possible and as thorough as possible with the investigation,” said Knight. 

“I took the photo,” said Nghe. 

(The Guardian)