This piece is a follow-up to a post on How True, a newsletter by Bill Mitchell about the controversy surrounding the photo and what it takes to nail down the truth of what happened. Subscribe to How True here.
Back in February 2019, I read a Guardian story about the woman photographed as a 9 year-old in the famous “Napalm Girl” picture taken in Vietnam in 1972. I sent the link to a friend, Tom Fox, who had worked as a correspondent in Vietnam in the ’60s and early ’70s.
I was shocked at his reply. He said that Nick Út, the Associated Press photographer who won a Pulitzer Prize for the photo, did not take the picture. In a follow-up conversation, Fox said it was actually taken by a stringer who sold his film to the AP’s Saigon bureau.
Fox said he learned this from Carl Robinson, a friend who was the AP photo editor who processed the photo on that day in June 1972. Fox said Robinson told him that his boss directed him to write a caption crediting Út, an AP staffer, instead of the freelancer who took the picture.
Nick Út disputes the claim, insists he took the photo
Út insists that he did, in fact, take the iconic photo, an assertion supported by photographer David Burnett and former New York Times correspondent Fox Butterfield, both of whom were among the reporters and photographers on the road where it happened.
The claims and counterclaims were catapulted into the public eye late last month when Netflix began streaming “The Stringer,” the documentary that investigates who snapped the shutter.
In February, after the film was screened at Sundance, photographer David Kennerly launched a GoFundMe page for a legal fund for Út, with “all funds (going) to the pursuit of a defamation claim against the filmmakers.”
I was eager to watch the film for two reasons. I’d spoken with Tom Fox about the controversy, off and on, for more than six years before it became public. And the focus of the film — digging up evidence aimed at confirming an elusive truth — mirrors the mission of my Substack newsletter, How True: Stories & Strategies of Nailing Stuff Down.
My Dec. 4 post about the controversy raised a host of journalism-related questions, some of which were posed in the comments attached to my Substack newsletter and others sparked by my Facebook post. They include:
In evaluating Robinson’s version of events, what are some helpful ways to assess the half century he waited before going public?
At first glance, such a delay would appear to undermine the credibility of his claim. Among other things, a significant delay can result in distorted memories and imagined details.
As reasonable as it is to challenge the specifics of Robinson’s recollection of events of 1972, the same standards apply to the memories of other eyewitnesses.
The challenges associated with reporting about long-ago incidents only recently alleged/discussed can be especially significant during coverage of sexual abuse. Since it’s not unusual for survivors of such abuse to wait decades before speaking up, reporters as well as courts have had to learn how best to assess their claims.
Psychologists say a delay of decades should not necessarily discredit a claim, pointing out that there may be any number of reasons why someone feared speaking up earlier. But a delay of many decades does increase the importance of collaborative evidence.
Given the range of critical issues that journalists should be investigating these days, is it really worthwhile to devote time and energy to determining the attribution of a photo, however iconic it may be, that was taken more than 50 years ago?
Commenting on my Facebook page, veteran journalist Ellen Hume dismissed the investigation as “a stupid distraction from the urgent issues today.”
Another veteran journalist, Alan Stamm, agreed with Hume and elaborated, in part: “Proper attribution matters, of course, but isn’t always attainable. This seems like dancing on the head of a pin about an unresolvable matter.”
Were the photo less consequential, I’d be inclined to agree. But just as journalists would investigate allegations of false authorship of an important piece of literature or art, I believe the inquiry launched by “The Stringer” is warranted.
A half century after the fact, is it really appropriate to dig into something that could be so devastating for Nick Út, by all accounts a good and decent man?
Marlene Crouse, one of my Substack subscribers, posted: “Context is everything. I wish Carl, after 50 years, had waited a few more and taken his ‘secret’ to the grave.” She added: “The ask of Nick Út is too big.”
Robinson says he owed it to the stringer whom he believes took the photo, Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, to speak up on his behalf, however belatedly.
What are some helpful ways to crowdsource an investigation of this sort?
Writing about this topic reminded me of an adage perhaps first coined by my former Detroit Free Press/San Jose Mercury News colleague, Dan Gillmor: On any given story, there are people in my audience who know a lot more about what I’m writing about than I do.
Readers of both my Facebook and Substack posts on the topic provided helpful perspectives and links, some of which I’d considered and read but others of which I had not. These commenters rendered my posts far more useful to readers by supplementing and, in many cases, challenging what I’d written.
To what extent should journalists rely on legal standards of truth in sorting out contested claims?
An attorney friend, Elianna MN, posted on Facebook that she found it interesting to see legal standards of evidence applied to “a news cold case.”
The “Napalm Girl” controversy strikes me as the kind of story in which those standards — preponderance of evidence vs. certainty beyond the shadow of a doubt — end up being the best measures available.
Children flee a napalm strike near Trang Bang, South Vietnam, on June 8, 1972. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc is at center. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
How much should journalists reveal of their own conclusions about what’s most likely true in a story like this?
This raises the important issue of “bothsidesism” in which journalists end up presenting a false balance in the course of trying to equip their audiences with a wide range of evidence and opinion.
In more than a half century as a journalist, I reported countless controversies involving various claims of truth without revealing what I, personally, regarded as most likely to be true.
Not so this time, as you’ll discover in my Substack post.
What do you think? Would you, as a reader, have been better served if I had kept my conclusions to myself? There are ways, after all, to avoid bothsidesism without making the kind of leap I opted for.
What questions do you have about this case? Please post them in the comments section of the version of this post on Substack. You can read my original post about the “Napalm Girl” photo here.
