{"id":177613,"date":"2025-12-10T17:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/177613\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T17:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:59:07","slug":"photographer-who-was-at-the-scene-of-napalm-girl-says-nick-ut-took-the-photo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/177613\/","title":{"rendered":"Photographer Who Was at the Scene of ‘Napalm Girl’ Says Nick Ut Took the Photo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ADavid Burnett in 1980. | Nationaal Archief<\/a> <\/p>\n

One of the key witnesses to the Napalm Girl photograph, David Burnett, has written an opinion piece for The Washington Post in which he says The Stringer film<\/a> \u201cdoes nothing\u201d to shake his long-held conviction that it was Nick Ut who pressed the shutter. <\/p>\n

Burnett, who worked for Time and Life magazines, was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ut when South Vietnamese forces accidentally napalmed their own people in the town of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972. <\/p>\n

\u201cI recall the moment with great clarity,\u201d Burnett writes. \u201cJust minutes after the napalm attack, I was standing on the road outside the village of Trang Bang with Ut and freelance reporter Alex Shimkin when we saw the first of the children fleeing toward the road through a cemetery.\u201d <\/p>\n

At that moment, Burnett\u2019s attention was focused on changing the film in his Leica, a task he calls \u201cstubborn.\u201d But he says he remembers Ut sprinting down the road toward the victims, and that he has always believed that Ut took the photo in the \u201cfollowing minute or two.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"ANick Ut <\/p>\n

While Burnett admits that he didn\u2019t actually see Ut take the photo, he says that he never saw Nguyen Thanh Nghe \u2014 the freelancer named by The Stringer as the real author of the photo \u2014 out at the front of the pack of journalists where he saw Ut. <\/p>\n

Key Witness <\/p>\n

Burnett\u2019s opinion piece is significant as he has remained mostly silent since The Stringer was announced earlier this year, despite being a key witness. The photographer says he declined to participate in the documentary because of his suspicion that the filmmakers were only interested in rubberstamping prior conclusions. <\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral of my photos \u2014 initially shown to Knight in colleagueship and good faith \u2014 were used in the film without my permission or attribution,\u201d Burnett adds. \u201cPotentially creating the inaccurate impression that I agreed with the filmmaker\u2019s viewpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n

Burnett also says that he doubts the truthfulness of Carl Robinson\u2019s story \u2014 the AP photo editor who appears in The Stringer and claims he was told to swap the photo credit by Horst Faas. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my experience, there is a 2 percent chance that the absolutely wildest claims might be true, but to me, the account lacks veracity,\u201d says Burnett. \u201cWhat is absolutely true is that once the picture had been printed and was being wired out to the world, Faas congratulated Ut in a very Faas-like way, saying in his unmistakable German accent, \u2018You do good work today, Nick Ut.\u2019 That is word for word what he said.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Burnett in 1980. | Nationaal Archief One of the key witnesses to the Napalm Girl photograph, David…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,113683,113684,501,156,113685,8541,1094,111,139,8543,69,113686,8546,113687,113688,113689],"class_list":{"0":"post-177613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-carlrobinson","13":"tag-davidburnett","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-garyknight","17":"tag-napalmgirl","18":"tag-netflix","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nickut","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-terrorofwar","24":"tag-thestringer","25":"tag-thestringerthemanwhotookthephoto","26":"tag-thewashingtonpost","27":"tag-vietnamwar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}