Nick Ut launches 'criminal defamation' case in France.
Carl Robinson
I presume most of you have heard about this. I haven't been deliberately holding back -- just distracted by other things.
Nick Ut has now filed a criminal defamation complaint in France over The Stringer.
It’s a case under the 1881 Press Law — the old Third Republic statute that still treats defamation as an offence against public order. The complaint names Gary Knight, the VII Foundation, and Netflix France.
(It’s the same law used to prosecute Émile Zola after his 1898 J’Accuse…! — the piece that blew open the Dreyfus Affair. He was sentenced to a year in prison and fled to the UK.)
Worth noting: the story surfaced in the press before the VII Foundation had even been informed, which tells you something about how the timing was managed. And importantly, this is Netflix France, not the global arm, and under French evidentiary rules that differ from U.S., U.K. or Australian frameworks, and I'm not named in any of it.
After a year of noise around the documentary, things had gone quiet. Not anymore.
For anyone wanting outside coverage, here are a few links: NYT, Independent and PetaPixel.
Nick Ut Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Netflix Over 'The Stringer' Documentary | PetaPixel
Photographer Nick Ut Sues Netflix Over ‘Napalm Girl’ Documentary - The New York Times
Best regards,
Carl Robinson
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Carl Robinson
A quick update for those following The Stringer dispute.
BBC Vietnamese has confirmed that the criminal defamation complaint filed by Nick Ut in France is now officially on the docket. The Tribunal correctionnel de Tarascon has set a hearing date of 15 May 2026.
The case is being brought via citation directe under the 1881 French Press Law, targeting the documentary The Stringer and its claims about the authorship of the Napalm Girl photograph. The defendants include VII Foundation, Gary Knight, Netflix International BV, and Netflix France.
The BBC notes that it contacted Gary Knight for comment but received no reply.
The article also summarises the AP investigations, the Index reconstruction work in Paris, and the WPP decision last year to stop listing Nick Ut as the author pending further clarity.
Link to the full BBC Vietnamese piece is here:
And here is a translation of the full story:
Lawyers representing photographer Nick Ut have filed a criminal lawsuit against several individuals and organizations, alleging defamation, in connection with the wartime iconic Napalm Baby, to a court in France.
In a press release issued on March 3, Nick Ut's lawyers said that the proceedings were carried out through a direct summons to the court.
The trial has been set for May 15, 2026 at the Tarascon Criminal Court, France.
This legal move by Mr. Nick Ut was made after the documentary The Stringer, produced by The VII Foundation and released in France by Netflix Services France.
According to the lawyers, the lawsuit was "initiated on the basis of public defamation of an individual," according to Article 29 of the French Law on Freedom of the Press on July 29, 1881.
"In accordance with French press law, the citation directe [direct summons to court] procedure allows an individual who claims to be a victim of public defamation to take the case directly to the criminal court," the press release said.
The lawsuit relates to an allegation raised in the movie The Stringer, which claims that Mr. Nick Ut is not the author of the photo Napalm Baby (also known as The Terror of War).
The film also accused photographer Nick Ut of deliberately giving inaccurate information about the authorship of the photo for decades, and exaggerating his role in taking Kim Phuc to the emergency room after the photo was taken, according to the statement.
The controversy over the real author of the Napalm Baby photo flared up after the documentary The Stringer (Freelance Reporter) by Vietnamese-American director Bao Nguyen premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, USA, on January 25, 2025.
In early September 2025, the film's producer said Netflix had bought the film and renamed it The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo.
The film, which premiered on Netflix on November 28, 2025, claims that the person who took the photo was actually Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a freelance reporter, and that he sold the reel to the Associated Press for a small sum of money.
The person who gave the information, which led to the film's creation, was Carl Robinson, a photo editor at the Associated Press's offices in Saigon during the Vietnam War.
The film relies on interviews and information gathered during the two-year investigation, and uses the results of the French organization Index to conclude that Nick Ut was not close enough to the scene to capture this historic moment.
However, the film is missing a number of key witnesses directly related to the photo, including the head of the AP photo bureau in Saigon at the time, Horst Faas, who shot the photo in the AP's darkroom, Yuichi "Jackson" Ishizaki, NBC News bureau chief in Saigon in 1972. Mr. Arthur Lord - Mr. Nguyen Thanh Nghe's boss.
These people have all passed away.
Besides, some questions asked by many critics after The Stringer was released are why Mr. Nghe and Mr. Robinson kept this secret for more than 50 years even though they had many opportunities to tell it?
Regarding this issue, in an exclusive interview with BBC News Vietnamese in May 2025, Mr. Nghe said:
"I've never claimed to be an author because I know there's no way to get justice for myself. I don't have the evidence in my hands, then who will believe me. The war ended, my family went to the United States, and for me at that time, the safety of my family came first.
"Nothing is more important than the truth. We learn from our own mistakes so that we don't make them again. I was silent, voiceless, insecure and distressed, pent-up emotions.
"My story was forgotten, until Gary Knight found me."
Critics, meanwhile, pointed out that although Nghe said he had worked for NBC News, he had, throughout his career, not released any other photos. Mr. Nghe also failed to provide a copy of the Napalm Baby photo, explaining that his ex-wife "tore it up".
The Associated Press, where Nick Ut once worked, has also twice investigated the incident involving the Napalm Baby, before and after the documentary The Stringer was shown.
The conclusion of the AP investigation said that Nick Ut was "likely" the person who took the photo, but could not definitively prove it due to the passage of time, the lack of key evidence — such as lost film negatives, technological limitations and the death of several important figures involved.
On the other hand, the AP also said: "The new findings revealed during the investigation have raised unanswered questions and the AP is still open to the possibility that Nick Ut did not take this photo.
According to the AP, there are two "unresolved" issues that lead to this "open possibility", namely the camera Nick Ut used to take the photo and his location at the scene.
As for the shooting location, both INDEX and the AP agreed that Ut was standing further away from the scene at the time he first appeared in the footage after the photo was taken.
Regarding the camera, the AP report said that Horst Faas, the head of the AP photography department in Saigon in 1972 (deceased), and Nick Ut both said that the Napalm Baby was taken with a Leica M2 camera.
But after AP used this camera and other Leica models for test shoots and analysis, it was unlikely that the Napalm Baby was taken with any Leica, but possibly with a Pentax.
However, the AP report said that Nick Ut had never mentioned Pentax in previous interviews, although after hearing the AP say the photo was likely taken with a Pentax camera, he accepted that possibility.
The AP then kept the author's name as Nick Ut.
However, World Press Photo (WPP), the organization that awards the world press photo, has decided to stop crediting Nick Ut as the author of the photo in May 2025, after commissioning an in-depth investigation that lasted at least five months.
However, WPP also noted that they did not confirm for sure that Mr. Nghe was the author. The conclusion made by this organization was: "If only Ut and Nghe are considered, the existing visual and technical evidence is in favor of Nghe."
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