'Napalm Girl' may be work of different war photographer

The official attribution for one of the most famous press photographs ever taken has been suspended after a documentary challenged 50 years of journalistic history.

- Adrian Horton

Titled The Terror of War but usually known as Napalm Girl, it is an indelible image of the US war in Vietnam. Since its publication in June 1972, it has been officially attributed to Nick Ut, a Vietnamese photographer working with the Associated Press in Saigon.

AP and Ut have long maintained that Ut, then 21, captured the image, which won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 1973 and established his reputation.

But the documentary proposes that the photo, which depicts a naked nine-year-old named Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing a napalm attack on the village of Trang Bang, was taken by Nguyen Thanh Nghe instead.

The Stringer, which premiered at the Sundance film festival in January, claimed Nghe, a driver for NBC who sold photos to AP as a freelancer, was denied credit in favour of Ut because he was not AP staff.

The film prompted "deep reflection" at World Press Photo, which conducted an investigation, the results of which were made public yesterday.