The Associated Press says it is “ready to review any and all evidence and new information” regarding the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a naked girl running from a napalm attack credited to AP staffer Nick Ut, saying its access to materials in a new documentary claiming a freelancer shot the iconic Vietnam War image was restricted before the film was shown at Sundance.
“The goal of The Associated Press as a global news organization is to report the facts,” the AP said in a statement to TheWrap. “When we became aware of this film and its allegations broadly, we took them very seriously and began investigating.”
Before the film came out, the AP said its own probe presented no new evidence that anyone but Ut took the photo. But the legacy wire service added Sunday that the filmmakers’ nondisclosure demands prevented it from looking at all the evidence presented in the film, which it saw for the first time during Saturday night’s public screening.
“For over six months we worked to examine all information about ‘The Terror of War’ photo, repeatedly asking the filmmakers from the start to share their materials with us so we could properly investigate,” the news org said. “They would not do so unless we signed a non-disclosure agreement or agreed to an embargo, which has hindered our ability to fully investigate and would have prevented us from correcting the record, if needed, which we explained to them. The first time any AP representative saw the filmmakers’ full materials was Saturday night.”
Ut was present when the village was bombed in 1972, along with other American news crews and military freelance photographers. TheWrap wrote Saturday that the film “makes a thoroughly convincing case that Ut did not take the photo, although he took many other remarkable photos on that day, including of the little girl but from a different and less impactful angle.”
A panel discussion after Saturday night’s screening included Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a local freelancer, or “stringer,” to whom the film credits taking the photo that turned the tide of the Vietnam War – and won Ut journalism’s highest honor.
“I took the photo,” Nguyen said through an interpreter. He joined the panel from his California after “The Stringer,” directed by Bao Nguyen, concluded. The Q&A also featured former AP Saigon photo editor Carl Robinson, who said he’s carried the truth about who shot the image ever since its publication.
“I didn’t want to die before this story came out,” Robinson said. “I wanted to say sorry [to Nghe]. After COVID I looked straight on and I said, ‘It had to be Nghe.’ … I wanted to find him and talk, just the two of us. And I did.”
The AP said Sunday that it was not able to speak with its former employee or Nguyen unrestricted, or review other relevant materials, but was open to doing so.
“We continue to reiterate what we have said all along – and said publicly last week: AP stands ready to review any and all evidence and new information about this photo. To do so, the filmmakers would have to lift the restriction they placed on all their contributors who signed non-disclosure agreements. … We cannot state more clearly that The Associated Press is only interested in the facts and a truthful history of this iconic photo.”
