A dispute over the ‘Napalm Girl’ photo raises questions about confirming 50-year-old history

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

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.