Sky News apologises for using Vietnam War napalm image in story about taxi drivers
Sky News Australia is facing online backlash after an article about Vietnamese taxi drivers’ anger over mobile apps used Nick Ut’s famous 1972 image of distressed, naked and injured children running from a napalm attack.
@HattoriHanzo232 @SkyNewsAust pic.twitter.com/epMUuheVtR
— Tim Bell (@timpoliti) January 19, 2017
‘Vietnam taxi drivers angry over mobile apps’, published on the site on Thursday afternoon, featured the iconic image immediately under the headline. The image, ‘Terror of war’ (often colloquially referred to as ‘Napalm girl’) was shot in 1972 by Associated Press’ Ut after a South Vietnamese plane dropped napalm on troops and civilians just outside Trang Bang, South Vietnam.
Twitter user Bradley Woods questioned whether the use of the image was “due to automated image matching software” or whether an editor deliberately placed it.
Sky News subsequently apologised in a tweet posted last night: “A distressing image was recently attached to an unrelated story which we apologise for. We are investigating internally how this occurred”.
The original story now appears to have been deleted from Sky News’ website, as does their tweet apologising for the incident.
A screenshot of last night’s apology tweet from Sky News
@SkyNewsAust ????
— Dibba ن (@Dibba75) January 19, 2017
@SkyNewsAust was the use of the photo of Phan Thị Kim Phúc due to automated image matching software or did an editor deliberately place it?
— Bradley Woods ??? (@BradleyBWoods) January 19, 2017
How long before Sky News is renamed FOX News?
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