Who was the real photographer behind the image that defined the Vietnam war?

Kim Phuc at the exhibition From Hell to Hollywood in Milan, 2022. Phuc, the girl in the original photograph, refused to participate in The Stringer documentary
© 2022 Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images
If there is a photographer whose life’s work is indelibly linked to one defining picture, then that photographer is Nick Ut. Everything changed for the 21-year-old on 8 June 1972 when an errant napalm attack threw him together with nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc on the road out of Trang Bàng, 30 miles northwest of Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His photograph of five terrified children running from an enormous cloud of smoke—with Phuc screaming at its centre, naked and covered in burns—became emblematic of the horrors of the Vietnam War after it was shown on newspaper covers across the world. The picture, titled The Terror of War, later won a World Press Photo of the Year award and a Pulitzer Prize, and remains one of the most potent and abhorrent images of modern conflict.
Phuc’s clothes were burnt off her, and her nakedness posed a difficult decision for editors at the time, who ultimately decided that public interest outweighed any squeamishness about her body. She was never consulted. The photograph subsequently became a textbook example when examining media ethics. And now there is a new layer of complexity to consider following the allegation of a five-decade-long cover-up that has shocked and divided the photojournalism community: What if Ut did not actually take the picture?
That is the conclusion of a feature-length documentary film, The Stringer, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah on 25 January, claiming that it was instead made by an uncredited freelancer, one of several journalists present that day. Drawing on the findings of Index, a French forensics team the filmmakers hired to determine whether Ut was in the right place at the right time to take the picture, The Stringer uses the backstory to the infamous image to raise questions that go beyond authorship and journalistic integrity—calling out prejudice and misuse of power.
The film’s executive producer, Gary Knight of the VII Foundation, a former photojournalist himself, set out to explore a potential story of gross deception, prompted by the claim of a former Associated Press (AP) photo editor in Saigon that the picture was shot by someone else. Carl Robinson says that he was told to credit the picture to one of the news agency’s own photographers—“make it Nick Ut”—rather than the stringer (freelancer) who handed him the roll of film containing the seminal shot. The order allegedly came from Horst Faas, AP’s chief of photography in Saigon, a seemingly unassailable figure who was himself a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist. The film speculates that Faas wanted to do something for Ut’s family, having worked with his older brother, a Vietnamese photographer who was killed while on assignment for AP in 1965.
Ut joined AP that same year as a 15-year-old, and stayed with the agency for 52 years, moving to the US in 1977, and retiring 40 years later. He became something of a celebrity, travelling the world as the photographer of the Napalm Girl, sometimes accompanied by Phuc herself, who is now a Canadian citizen. Phuc has previously spoken about her initial dislike of the picture being taken “when I was in agony, naked”, but told Al Jazeera in 2012 that she was now proud of it. “I consider it a really powerful gift for me, to use that to work for peace.”
No one doubts the veracity of the photograph, but the documentary concludes that it was likely taken by Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a local stringer who was paid $20 and left uncredited. And more than a half-century later after he was tracked down to give his testimony, Nghe was invited to the film’s world premiere at Sundance, where he asserted: “I took the photo.”
Knight and a team of journalists conducted a two-year investigation, which was documented by the Vietnamese American film director Bao Nguyen. Knight tells The Art Newspaper that he was driven by a conviction that journalists must also be accountable—to be “willing to examine our own failures when we hold the rest of the world to account—however uncomfortable”. And besides the question of truth-telling, he says that there is the wider issue of the power imbalance in journalism, “which has been dominated by Western white men, like me”, and which The Stringer also addresses. “This film is a metaphor for the writing out of journalism history the contribution of local photo-journalists and journalists—both in Vietnam, and before and since—especially the most vulnerable group, which is freelancers.”
AP published its own internal investigation re-examining events ahead of the film’s preview. Its report includes eyewitness accounts from seven people who were on the road in Trang Bàng that day, or who worked in its Saigon bureau, and sticks by Ut’s author credit, while describing Robinson as a “disgruntled” former employee.
Ut’s attorney, James Hornstein, strongly refutes the filmmaker’s central allegation, telling The Art Newspaper that the photographer was present in the AP office when the roll of film was developed and printed, ready to answer questions about why he had photographed a naked girl. “The negative was printed immediately and shown to those in the office… Carl Robinson was not yet even in the office at that moment.” He says a defamation action is being prepared that will present eyewitness statements alongside images and film footage not seen by the filmmakers.
According to a statement released by Hornstein, Phuc refused to participate in the documentary, calling it an “outrageous and false attack on Nick Ut”. One of the main criticisms of the film is that she and Ut are missing voices. Another is that AP was not given a right of reply. The agency was apparently offered a preview but asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement first. In the end, the screening was the first time anyone from the agency was able to properly hear the allegations. AP has called on the filmmakers to “release their contributors from non-disclosure agreements for the film, including Nghe”, and to share the Index findings. “We cannot state more clearly that The Associated Press is only interested in the facts and a truthful history of this iconic photo.”
The Art Newspaper has not seen the documentary, nor hardly anyone else who did not attend Sundance, which is essentially an industry event where new films are screened in the hope of gaining wider distribution. Further screenings of The Stringer depend on such a deal, though it is common for new films to show at other festivals first. And yet the issues the film raises have already sparked debate within the world of visual journalism.
Nick Ut, who has long been credited for shooting The Terror of War, joined the Associated Press when he was 15
Photo: Associated Press/Alamy Stock Photo
For Jess Crombie, an academic and consultant specialising in the ethics of visual storytelling, there is another aspect to the story that takes precedence. “When images are taken of a suffering individual, the photographer may interact with the person in the picture, [but mostly] they do not involve that person in the ongoing life of the image. In this instance, Ut and Phuc have—after a 14-year hiatus—maintained a lifelong relationship. She has become an activist for peace and has spoken warmly of her relationship with Ut. This ongoing relationship is important: Phuc is not a nameless victim of war; she is a real flesh-and-blood human. And Ut’s actions, ensuring she was involved in discussions about how to use this image, demonstrate his humanising of her.”
There is another twist to the story, however. Writing in the weekend edition of The Australian on 8 February, Robinson lays out his version of events in detail, including the claim that it was not Ut who took Phuc to hospital that day, as the photographer has long claimed. He tells The Art Newspaper that the events half a century ago have played on his conscience ever since. “The 50th anniversary in 2022, and being close to hitting 80 years old, still feeling the burden of guilt and complicity, I actually just wanted to find Nghe and apologise, say sorry.”
In his article Robinson tells the story of his attempts to first identify and then eventually track down Nghe, later with the help of the filmmakers and a local journalist. He tells The Art Newspaper that Faas was, in general, a tough but fair-minded boss, who usually treated stringers well, and that Ut was “an unwilling accomplice”. But, he adds, “I hope that he finally finds some relief from living a life that he knew wasn’t true but went along with anyway.”
Ut has also now broken his silence to thank his supporters in a 15 February post on Facebook that includes a picture of his AP colleagues—including Robinson—celebrating with him after the announcement of his Pulitzer win. “More than 50 years later, I cannot understand why Mr Carl Robinson, a fellow employee of the AP in Saigon at the time, would make up a story and claim I did not take that iconic photo,” he writes, asking why Robinson or anyone else has not come forward before. “I am extremely sad for the bureau chief and boss Horst Faas, rest in peace, and all of the AP staff in Saigon. This accusation […] is a slap in the face of everyone who dedicated their entire lives, careers, to creating authentic, real and true images in very difficult situations like the Vietnam War.”
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