The Stringer. A Documentary Film and Investigation.
In December 2022 I began working with a team of journalists at the VII Foundation and in Vietnam on an investigation into the veracity of the authorship of one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, of any century. That investigation was documented by the Vietnamese American film director Bao Nguyen.
What we uncovered speaks to the heart of what is most important in our profession. The film grapples with questions of authorship, racial injustice, power, and journalistic ethics while shining a light on the fundamental yet often unrecognized contributions of local freelancers who provide the information we need to understand how events worldwide impact us all.
This is a story that many people in our profession did not want told, and some of them continue to go to great lengths to make sure it isn’t told. But regardless of the passage of time and however inconvenient it might be, nothing should stall the pursuit of truth in journalism because - if we seek to hold everyone else to account, we are obliged to hold ourselves to account. There is an old adage that journalism is ‘the first draft of history’, sometimes it takes a second draft to set the record straight.
As one of the legendary Vietnamese journalists we spoke to told us: “There's nothing more important than the truth. When the truth is disregarded, that's when society becomes corrupted. (The truth) cannot be twisted, or torn apart, because if so, it’s no longer the truth and we will have lost our moral compass.”
We are honoured that ‘The Stringer’ premiered to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, before it was shown at film festivals worldwide and then licensed for distribution by Netflix later that year. Rolling Stone magazine published an essay about the investigation in August 2025.
Rolling Stone
