🔗 Share this article

Perhaps the most iconic photographs from the twentieth century shows a naked girl, her hands spread wide, her features twisted in terror, her body scorched and peeling. She appears running towards the photographer after running from an airstrike during the Vietnam War. Beside her, youngsters are fleeing out of the devastated community of the area, against a backdrop featuring thick fumes and troops.

The Global Effect of a Seminal Image

Within hours its publication during the Vietnam War, this photograph—formally named "Napalm Girl"—turned into a pre-digital hit. Witnessed and discussed by countless people, it has been generally hailed for motivating global sentiment against the US war in Southeast Asia. A prominent author afterwards commented how the profoundly lasting picture featuring nine-year-old Kim Phúc suffering likely was more effective to fuel popular disgust regarding the hostilities compared to a hundred hours of televised violence. A renowned English documentarian who documented the war called it the ultimate image of what would later be called the televised conflict. A different experienced combat photographer declared how the picture represents quite simply, a pivotal photographs in history, particularly of the Vietnam war.

The Long-Standing Attribution Followed by a New Claim

For over five decades, the photo was attributed to a South Vietnamese photographer, an emerging local photographer working for the Associated Press in Saigon. But a disputed new documentary streaming on a global network contends which states the famous picture—long considered as the apex of photojournalism—might have been taken by a different man present that day during the attack.

As claimed by the documentary, the iconic image was actually photographed by a stringer, who provided his photos to the AP. The allegation, and the film’s following inquiry, began with a man named Carl Robinson, who alleges how the dominant photo chief directed the staff to reassign the image’s credit from the freelancer to Út, the sole employed photographer present at the time.

This Investigation for Answers

The former editor, currently elderly, emailed a filmmaker a few years ago, asking for help to locate the unnamed photographer. He expressed how, if he was still living, he wished to give a regret. The filmmaker thought of the independent stringers he knew—likening them to current independents, who, like independent journalists at the time, are routinely overlooked. Their efforts is often questioned, and they work under much more difficult situations. They are not insured, no retirement plans, they don’t have support, they usually are without proper gear, and they are extremely at risk while photographing in familiar settings.

The journalist wondered: Imagine the experience for the person who took this image, if in fact he was not the author?” As an image-maker, he speculated, it could be profoundly difficult. As a follower of photojournalism, especially the highly regarded combat images of the era, it would be reputation-threatening, maybe legacy-altering. The hallowed history of the image in the community was so strong that the filmmaker with a background emigrated at the time was reluctant to pursue the project. He said, “I didn’t want to unsettle the established story that Nick had taken the photograph. Nor did I wish to disrupt the status quo among a group that always respected this success.”

The Search Unfolds

However the two the filmmaker and his collaborator felt: it was necessary posing the inquiry. When reporters must keep the world in the world,” noted the journalist, it is essential that we are willing to address tough issues within our profession.”

The investigation tracks the journalists in their pursuit of their research, including discussions with witnesses, to requests in present-day Ho Chi Minh City, to examining footage from other footage captured during the incident. Their search eventually yield an identity: Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, employed by NBC that day who also worked as a stringer to the press on a freelance basis. In the film, a moved the claimant, now also elderly and living in the US, states that he provided the image to the news organization for a small fee with a physical photo, but was haunted by the lack of credit for decades.

This Reaction Followed by Additional Investigation

The man comes across in the footage, quiet and calm, however, his claim proved controversial in the world of war photography. {Days before|Shortly prior to