Donald Trump is no fan of the free press. Kim Jong Un is really no fan of the free press. So guess what happened at their summit? Yup, press access was extremely limited.
A press pool of about half the usual size got a few minutes to see Trump and Kim at the beginning of their meeting, and while a larger pool was allowed to cover the expanded bilateral meeting, the only media presence at the working lunch between Trump and Kim was in the form of Singaporean government cameras and photographers.
As per usual with this White House, incompetence is a possible factor alongside hostility to the free press:
Media access at high-level meetings between leaders is usually negotiated far in advance. But a week before the summit, Sanders told POLITICO that the White House was still working out the details. That uncertainty appeared to carry over to the summit itself, where a “tight pool” was designated to witness key events. North Korea has nothing like a free press, so it is unclear in exactly what function the North Korean “reporters” were serving.
On the plus side, Trump held a press conference and has done interviews since talking to Kim, so while we may not have much more reliable information about what was really said between the two, at least we have a benchmark for tracking Trump’s story as it changes going forward.