Iconic photo sparks controversy in new doc

Iconic photo sparks controversy in new doc

DAVID BAUDER
Iconic photo sparks controversy in new doc

It is one of the 20th century's most memorable images: A naked girl, screaming, running from a napalm bombing during the Vietnam War. More than a half-century later, a new documentary is calling into question who took it — and the retired Associated Press photographer long credited for the photo insists it was his, while his longtime employer says it has no evidence of anyone else being behind the camera.

The film about the Pulitzer Prize-winning picture, “The Stringer,” is scheduled to debut next week at the Sundance Film Festival. Both photographer Nick Ut and his longtime employer are contesting it vigorously, and Ut's lawyer is seeking to block the premiere, threatening a defamation lawsuit. The AP, which conducted its own investigation over six months, concluded it has “no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.”

The picture of Kim Phuc running down a road in the village of Trang Bang, crying and naked because she had taken off clothes burning from napalm, instantly became symbolic of the horrors of the Vietnam War.

Taken on June 8, 1972, the photo is credited to Ut, then a 21-year-old staffer in AP's Saigon bureau. He was awarded the Pulitzer a year later. Now 73, he moved to California after the war and worked for the AP for 40 years until retiring in 2017.

The film's allegations open an unexpected new chapter for an image that, within hours of it being taken, was beamed around the planet and became one of the most indelible photographs of both the Vietnam War and the turbulent century that produced it. Whatever the truth, the film's investigations apparently relate only to the identity of the photographer and not the image's overall authenticity.

The dispute puts the filmmakers, who call the episode “a scandal behind the making of one of the most-recognized photographs of the 20th century,” at odds with Ut, whose work that day defined his career. It also puts them at cross purposes with the AP, a global news organization for whom accuracy is a foundational part of the business model.

 How did the questioning of the photo begin?

It's difficult, so many years later, to overestimate the wallop that this particular image packed. Ron Burnett, an expert on images and former president of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, called it “earth-shattering."

“It changed the way photos have always been thought about and broke the rules for how much violence you can show to the public,” Burnett said.

The photo sat unchallenged for much of its 53-year existence. All these years later, a counter-narrative has emerged that it was instead taken by another person, someone who working that day as a driver for NBC News and also lives now in California. The person allegedly had delivered his film to the AP's office as a “stringer,” a non-staff member who provides material to a news organization.

The husband-and-wife team of Gary Knight, founder of the VII Foundation, and producer Fiona Turner are behind the film. On his website, Knight described “The Stringer” as “a story that many in our profession did not want told, and some of them continue to go to great lengths to make sure isn’t told.”

“The film grapples with questions of authorship, racial injustice and journalistic ethics while shining a light on the fundamental yet often unrecognized contributions of local freelancers who provide the information we need to understand how events worldwide impact us all,“ Knight wrote.

Still, the AP decided to release its own findings before seeing “The Stringer” and the details of the claim that it is making. “AP stands prepared to review any evidence and take whatever remedial action might be needed if their thesis is proved true,” the news organization said.

A key source for the story in “The Stringer” is Carl Robinson, then a photo editor for the AP in Saigon, who was initially overruled in his judgment not to use the picture. AP reached out to Robinson as part of its probe, but he said he had signed an NDA with Knight and the VII Foundation. Knight followed up, saying Robinson would only speak off the record, which the AP concluded would have prevented the news organization from setting the record straight.

On duty that day in Saigon, Robinson had concluded that Ut's picture could not be used because it would have violated standards prohibiting nudity. But Faas overruled him, and senior AP editors in New York decided to run the picture for what it conveyed about war.

The AP questioned Robinson's long silence in contradicting Ut's photo credit, and showed a photo from its archives of Robinson with champagne toasting Ut's Pulitzer Prize. In a 2005 interview with corporate archives, Robinson said he thought AP “created a monster” when it distributed the photo because much of the world's sympathies were focused on one victim, instead of war victims more broadly.

The lawyer also produced a statement from Kim Phuc, who said that while she has no memory of that day, her uncle has repeatedly told her that Ut took the picture and that she had no reason to doubt him. Ut also took her to the nearest hospital after the photo was taken, she wrote.

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