The North Korean media serves the singular purpose of maintaining and upholding the pristine portrayal of their leadership within the country.

This Trump-Kim summit in Singapore has seen that effort taken to new heights, where information has been restricted and shaped for North Koreans back home to a degree that would be alien to the outside world.

Up till the point Kim Jong-un touched down in Singapore, little information about the summit was released at all to the North Korean public.

Details revealed in scattered tidbits

As reported by the BBC, while North Koreans do know that a summit was being planned, the manner in which the information was released made it difficult to track when it was happening.

The first indication by the North Korean media that a summit with the United States president was even in the works was Rodong Sinmun said in an article, "Kim Jong Un Meets US Secretary of State".

Here, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reported by Rodong Sinmun as the bearer of a message from the US President Donald Trump, that he is interested in "settling the issue through dialogue".

No date or location for the summit was stated.

And given that on May 17 and 25, Rodong Sinmun ran two angry articles attacking

The May 25 article also noticeably left out Trump's cancellation of the summit the day before.

Then on May 27, in an article detailing Kim's visit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on May, the date of the summit is suddenly given as June 12 by this single line:

"Kim Jong-un thanked Moon Jae-in for much effort made by him for the DPRK-U.S. summit scheduled for June 12, and expressed his fixed will on the historic DPRK-U.S. summit talks."

Amazingly, no mention was made of the summit's location, until Kim's flight actually touched down in Singapore.

Even the visit by Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan in a whirlwind five-day criss-crossing between Washington and Pyongyang, while acknowledged by North Korean media, did not see them reveal the location of the summit.

Full information about the summit only revealed after Kim arrived

This meant that North Koreans basically had no idea the summit would take place in Singapore or that the summit would even definitely happen until June 11 morning, whereby Kim's arrival was splashed across the first two pages of Rodong Sinmun in colour:

A two-page color spread in this morning's Rodong Sinmum: North Korea announces that Kim Jong Un has left for a "historic summit" with the president of the United States. Clearly shows that he left in a Chinese plane too. pic.twitter.com/UBhZC1YzRa

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) June 10, 2018

Additionally, the Korea Central Television (KCTV) ran a seven-minute news bulletin covering everything from Kim doing a guard-of-honour inspection just before leaving Pyongyang to his eventual meeting with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

And the KCNA news agency did not pull any punches in the bombastic language, stating that:

"Wide-ranging and profound views on the issue of establishing new DPRK-US relations, the issue of building a permanent and durable peace-keeping mechanism on the Korean Peninsula, the issue of realising the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual concern, as required by the changed era, will be exchanged at the DPRK-US summit talks to be held for the first time in history amid the great attention and expectation of the whole world."

No effort spared in glorifying Kim

Such instances are the hallmarks of how the North Korean media typically operates in carefully maintaining the image of their Supreme Leader.

As Reuters noted, their modus operandi was accommodated by Singapore.

Prior to Kim's arrival at the St Regis hotel on Sunday, only two journalists could move freely on the blockaded street and set up their cameras on the road, with everyone else hemmed back by the police.

These two journalists were North Korean journalists.

Video cameramen sticking out of the sunroofs of SUVs filming Kim were also shown to be part of his convoy as seen in the video below:

The crux of the effort, however, was North Korean officials personally ensuring that only the North Korean media would be the people taking photos of Kim once he entered the hotel.

Reuters further reported, while Singaporean police and hotel staff had already told guests not to take photos of Kim, some guests could not resist attempting to do so which led to hostile confrontations by North Korean officials that had to be mediated by the St Regis hotel staff.

Since it was such tight control coupled with scant information in the preceding weeks that produced this morning's newsflash for North Koreans, it is clear that regardless of the summit's outcome, the North Korean media will ensure that every moment of Kim's time spent here is portrayed as a monumental success and testament to his capabilities as Supreme Leader back home.

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Top image by Jonas Gratzer/Light Rocket via Getty Images