Korean Leaders Seek to Control Optics at Historic Summit

Kim Jong Un will be in uncharted territory when the third-generation autocrat walks across the border and into the southern half of the Demilitarized Zone separating the rival Koreas on Friday to greet South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Cameras wielded by one of the most aggressive media contingents on the planet will fire live images of a man used to controlling every aspect of his public persona into the homes and onto the phones of millions of people around the world — though it’s not yet clear if it will be seen instantly in North Korea.

But as Kim navigates this minefield (figuratively; he’s not passing through that part of the DMZ) at the third-ever inter-Korean summit, he may have an ally of sorts in Moon.

Despite an announcement that some bits of the summit will be shown live, and the possibility of a joint news conference, Moon seems intent on keeping the North Korean leader at ease, and an aggressive local media at bay, while engineering a summit meant to move the Koreas from what seemed like the brink of war last year to the engagement that the liberal Moon has always dreamed of.

This mindset could make it hard for Moon — keen on creating a legacy-defining moment that will set up Kim’s summit with President Donald Trump in the coming weeks — to resist whatever media controls the North demands.

“The South Korean government is so anxious and invested to ensure the Kim-Trump summit happens, and isn’t a failure, that acceding to media choreography is a very small price to pay when Kim and Moon meet,” Vipin Narang, a Koreas specialist at MIT, said by email….