Associated Press forced to defend photographer’s credit for ‘Napalm Girl’ as documentary claims he didn’t take the photo

International news wire agency Associated Press has been forced to defend an acclaimed photographer’s credit for shooting ‘Napalm Girl’.

South Vietnamese forces follow after terrified children, including nine-year-old Kim Phuc, centre, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Vietcong hiding places, June 8, 1972. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

International news wire agency Associated Press has been forced to defend an acclaimed photographer’s credit for shooting one of the Vietnam War’s most defining images, widely known as “Napalm Girl”, more than 50 years after it shocked the world.

The 1972 photograph shows a then-nine-year-old Kim Phuc running naked and terrified, alongside other children, from her village of Trang Bang after being burned by a South Vietnamese ­napalm attack.

AP staff photographer “Nick” Huynh Cong Ut, then just 21, won a Pulitzer Prize for the image, known as The Terror of War, which has been credited by some with turning US public opinion further against the already unpopular war.

However, a new documentary, The Stringer, set to premiere at Sundance Film Festival later this month, alleges that Ut may not be the photographer behind Napalm Girl.

An undated photo of Associated Press photojournalist Nick Ut in South Vietnam. (AP Photo)

That suggestion has been tested and dismissed by AP, which released a report on January 15 saying it had conducted “pain­staking research” that supported the “authorship” of the photograph by Ut, then a young photojournalist working for AP’s Saigon bureau.

Secrecy surrounds the documentary by Vietnamese-American filmmaker Bao Nguyen, which “follows a team of investigators seeking the photo’s true authorship”, according to promotional material from Sundance programmer Sudeep Sharma.

“The photograph at the heart of The Stringer embodies this process of enshrinement, but a ­shadowy, whispered history of the image has been out of frame till now,” Mr Sharma said.

“With surprising revelations and a determined spirit of ­veracity, The Stringer shows the irreducible power of truth and its demand to be known, no ­matter the consequences.”

Kim Phuc reunited with Nick Ut at the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press, June 27, 2016. (AP Photo/Linda Deutsch)

AP’s report said conversations with seven people “who witnessed events on the road at Trang Bang or in AP’s Saigon bureau when the picture was first developed and printed,” had underpinned its investigation.

While none of those spoken to by AP was interviewed on camera for The Stringer, one witness said he spoke to one of the film’s ­producers over the phone “more than a year ago” and told her his recollection of the day.

“She told him he was wrong but would not provide any details to support her assertion.

“The filmmakers never reached out again,” the report said.

All seven eyewitnesses interviewed by AP remain steadfast in their assertion that Ut took the photograph, “though they have yet to see the filmmakers’ evidence,” the report said.