Kim-Trump accreditation: A hot ticket to nowhere
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Opinion

Kim-Trump accreditation: A hot ticket to nowhere

Euromoney was an accredited reporter at the Trump-Kim North Korea-US summit in Singapore in June.

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It was quite the spectacle – although perhaps not what you might expect.

Over 3,000 journalists applied for accreditation to cover the summit, which took place in the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island.

However only a handful of journalists approved by the two participating countries’ embassies were allowed anywhere near the hotel or president Trump’s later press conference, which effectively meant the White House press pool and a few members of North Korea’s not-particularly-independent press corps.

The others were all herded into the Formula One pit lane building and a windowless room filled with several hundred televisions, on which the proceedings were broadcast. This led to the rare sight of noted journalists from around the world being reduced to taking photos of the telly. 

The journalists wandered mostly into each other’s shots during piece-to-camera broadcasts and wondered why they had flown as much as 6,000 miles to be absolutely nowhere near the meetings’ protagonists. Fortunately the pit lane is a 10-minute walk from Euromoney’s house, so when the electric atmosphere became too much we went home for a nice cup of tea. This may yet prove to be the summit’s most significant positive outcome. 

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