If you switched on the television in the U.S. this week, you’ve seen a lot of this: “... the world watching that high-stakes summit” “... we’re continuing our breaking coverage ahead of President Trump and Kim Jong-un’s high-stakes summit ...” “... an unprecedented nuclear summit with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un ...” But meanwhile, viewers in North Korea saw a lot of this. “The Sunday broadcast was much the same as every Sunday. So, documentaries about the life of one of the Kims, revolutionary movies — one of the programs this Sunday was about evils of tobacco. And there were children’s shows as well.” “Normally North Koreans don’t see anything in real time about any foreign excursion by the supreme leader. There’s normally nothing until after he has come back to the country.” In a country built on controlling the flow of information, the state-run media apparatus holds all the power. “By not reporting on things beforehand, the North Korean government a) doesn’t build expectations and b) gets to decide that whatever happens, it was a success.” But on Monday morning, North Korean state media did something unheard of. “We saw an unprecedented amount of North Korean media activity about Kim Jong-un’s visits in Singapore. All of it was reported in real time. And in fact, the anchor, a woman named Ri Chun-hee, a very famous anchor in North Korea, used the name Donald Trump — and used the the honorific form in Korean to describe President Trump. So this is unprecedented.” This giant departure from tradition is part of a bigger seismic shift. Since Kim’s New Year’s speech, North Korea’s propaganda machine has toned down its anti-American messaging. Broadcasts like this one, have become less frequent. And so have North Korean propaganda leaflets like these dropped over South Korea. They had been depicting Donald Trump and U.S. allies in a hostile light. But early this year, the leaflets suddenly started taking a much less aggressive tone. “A lot of messages about reconciliation, unification, peace, et cetera, and there was even a Olympic-themed one which showed the Olympic mascots, and they genuinely look like they could have been from South Korea.” And in April, when both Koreas agreed to cease all propaganda initiatives, the fliers stopped altogether. But time will tell whether a friendlier tone in North Korea’s propaganda will translate into a shift in Kim’s policies. “North Korea likes very big gestures and having a meeting with the president of the United States — that means a lot. And that can provide a certain momentum internally in North Korea to get some tangible steps going in terms of denuclearization.”