World Press Photo suspends credit for historic 'Napalm Girl' photo

Shaki Sutharsan · CBC News

· Posted: May 16, 2025 6:59 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

World Press Photo announced Friday it will suspend the authorship attribution of The Terror of War, also known as "Napalm Girl," the iconic photograph taken in 1972 during the Vietnam War. 

An independent investigation was launched by World Press Photo in January after a documentary released by The VII Foundation last year questioned whether Huỳnh Công (Nick) Út, the Associated Press staff photographer credited with the shot, actually took it. 

"Investigative analysis from World Press Photo indicated that, based on analysis of location, distance, and the camera used on that day, photographers Nguyễn Thành Nghệ or Huỳnh Công Phúc may have been better positioned to take the photograph than Nick Út," World Press Photo stated in a news release. "Due to this current doubt, World Press Photo has suspended the attribution to Nick Út."

Út, a young Vietnamese photographer who had been an Associated Press staffer at the time the photo was taken, has long been attributed for capturing the moment children fled from a napalm bomb attack carried out by a South Vietnamese aircraft on its own troops and civilians. The photograph was awarded The World Press Photo of the Year in 1973 and a Pulitzer Prize in that same year. 

The Stringer, The VII Foundation's 2024 documentary, alleged that the photograph was actually taken by Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, a Vietnamese military photographer who was a stringer at the time, and was misattributed to Út.

AP conducted its own nearly year-long investigation, eventually concluding that "there is not the 'definitive evidence' required by AP's standards to change the credit of the 53-year-old photograph."

Bao Nguyen, The Stringer's director, issued a statement via The VII Foundation's website following World Press Photo's suspension of attribution, saying the announcement "signals a turning point."

"This film is also about power – who gets to be seen, who is believed, and who gets to write history," Nguyen's statement said. "It affirms the need to look again at the stories we thought we knew."

Út's lawyer, James Hornstein, has disputed the film's claims.

He told the Associated Press that his client hadn't spoken to World Press Photo after some initial contact before The Stringer was released. "It seems they had already made up their mind to punish Nick Ut from the start," he said. Hornstein did not immediately respond to a request from CBC News.

World Press Photo said in its release that "the photograph itself remains undisputed," stressing that the World Press Photo award it received for capturing the historic moment "remains a fact."

"This remains contested history, and it is possible that the author of the photograph will never be fully confirmed. The suspension of the authorship attribution stands unless it is proved otherwise."