A documentary that debuted this weekend at Sundance questions whether Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Nick Ut took the Napalm Girl photo he’s credited with shooting, the Washington Post reports.
Both Ut and his employer at the time, the Associated Press, stand by Ut’s long-standing credit for taking the iconic photo of a naked girl running from a napalm bomb attack with her skin burning from the explosion.
The film The Stringer asserts an investigation conducted by a French forensic firm concluded Ut could not have possibly taken the photo from where he was positioned. Instead, it was stringer Nguyen Nghe who actually should be credited.
The filmmakers told the Hollywood Reporter Ut had his lawyers send a cease-and-desist order in an attempt to stop the showing of the film at Sundance.
“The most vulnerable journalists in the world are local freelancers. And it’s important if we’re going to hold political and religious and civic leaders to account that we embrace scrutiny and ask about our own conduct as well,” said Gary Knight who produced the film along with documentarian Bao Nguyen (The Greatest Night in Pop).
Knight is with the France-based press-freedom group VII Foundation and is also a photojournalist.
The Stringer features an interview with Carl Robinson, a former AP photo editor in the Saigon bureau when the photo was taken. Robinson said it was the stringer who took the photo and who received just $20 for it.
The Associated Press conducted its own six-month investigation into the allegations and stood by its original conclusion that Ut took the photograph.
“Our research supports the historical account that Nick Ut took this picture,” the statement to the Post reads. “In the absence of new, convincing evidence to the contrary, AP has no reason to believe this photo was taken by anyone other than Ut.”
However, the investigation came out 10 days before the documentaries premier and before investigators could see the film.
The AP acknowledged it did not see the film in advance, but says the filmmakers declined to let them see it without signing a nondisclosure agreement or agreeing to an embargo, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Knight doesn’t blame Ut who he says never asked for the credit, although he his career has benefitted from it.
Knight directed his criticism primarily at AP.
“It is really disgraceful that they shouldn’t embrace scrutiny. For journalists to seek to prevent a film that is an investigation into journalistic practices — I don’t understand that at all,” he said of the news organization.
Ut has won numerous accolades for the photo and it’s conceivable those prize committees could reevaluate their decisions and conduct their own investigations.
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