The world that cannot see, cannot change. Ads of the World recently featured this advertisement for www.worldpressfreedomday.org, developed for World Association of Newspapers by TBWA Hunt Lascaris, South Africa.
The original photograph was taken by journalist when South Vietnamese planes dropped napalm bombs on a Buddhist pagoda in the village of Trang Bang in an area becoming infiltrated by Vietcong forces. Kim Phuc, the girl covered by the hand, was rushed to hospital by the photographer, Huyng Cong Nick Ut. Kim Phuc endured years of burn therapy and still suffers residual pain as a result of the napalm’s effect on her body. Kim Phuc, now based in Canada, heads Kim Foundation International, an organisation that helps children deal with the physical and psychological scars caused by war and violence around the world.
TBWA Hunt Lascaris staff included creative director Camilla Herberstein, art directors/copywriters Darren Borrino, Nadja Lossgott and art director Nicholas van Renen. Nick Ut’s original photograph was retouched by Ben Cornford at Rob Frew Digital Retouching Studio, Johannesburg.
See the story, “How the Picture Reached the World”, by Horst Faas and Marianne Fulton.
May 3rd is a date which celebrates the fundamental principles of press freedom; to evaluate press freedom around the world, to defend the media from attacks on their independence and to pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession. 3 May was proclaimed World Press Freedom Day the UN General Assembly in 1993 following a Recommendation adopted at the twenty-sixth session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991.