SINGAPORE, Nov 29 — With nearly three decades of experience in the mainstream press, Associate Professor Bertha Henson, 55, recoils when people brand her as an online influencer due to the daily dose of news commentary she delivers on social media and her blog.

“When someone says the word ‘influencer’, I think right away about people who sell cosmetics and all that,” said a jovial Assoc Prof Henson, who has accumulated a minor Facebook following — around 25,000 at last count — thanks to her honest and colloquial commentaries on news and politics.

The journalism lecturer at the National University of Singapore sat down with TODAY to talk about her new book, GE2020: Fair or Foul, but the hour-long conversation frequently steered towards the special role she plays in online discourse on national issues, something she thoroughly enjoys.

“I sort of laughed at myself when I hit that 25,000 milestone of followers. I didn’t pay for any sponsored posts, or have any advertising. I don’t even have pictures on my blog.”

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As far as she is concerned, Assoc Prof Henson is still a journalist, albeit without a newsroom.

Her past ventures with socio-political commentary websites Breakfast Network and The Middle Ground were the closest she got to being a part of a newsroom after she left The Straits Times in 2012 where she had been an associate editor.

Today, she is a one-woman show running her online blog Bertha Harian, writing news commentaries with a productivity equaling those in her former industry.

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Assoc Prof Henson still finds herself alongside other journalists in the public gallery of Parliament sittings, official events, or in Government-led briefings. Except that when she reports the news nowadays, she proffers her opinion on top of the facts, she said.

She explained her process: “I have to do one-over the mainstream media, because I have to both report and comment. Which is a very interesting experiment for me to be able to write it such that people who haven’t read the news know what I’m talking about, and I’ll also give my bottom-line take as well.

“That, to me, is a very exciting way of doing things.”

Yet, the increasing popularity of news punditry among Singaporeans comes with certain societal pitfalls, too.

Too often, self-acclaimed pundits base their opinions on loose interpretations of the news, and end up offering hot takes with little basis or rigour, said Assoc Prof Henson.

“Even if the news is pundit-led, it must still be reporting-based. My worry is that there is a lot of punditry today which is piggybacking off other people’s work,” said the veteran journalist.

“If you want to be a commentator, there must be some semblance of the rigours that go into the reporting in your own work… Good columns are based on good research and good reporting — and you can keep your knee-jerk feelings to yourself.”

Likewise, she does not pull any punches for mainstream media — she regularly points out how certain news stories could have been written better and with the same rigour that she learnt in her days as a journalist.

Assoc Prof Henson also pours her energy into grooming future generations of journalists, too, as a lecturer in her university’s Department of Communications and New Media.

She said her sole objective now is to raise the professionalism of the news industry, rather than to set up another news outfit like she did with The Middle Ground or the Breakfast Network.

“I think that I have become a professional reader because I have all these institutional memories, so I sort of know why news is presented in a certain way. I feel that I am privy to this, but many people aren’t.

“That is the reason why I keep writing — I believe people should understand what journalism is about.”

Fair or foul

Her latest book reflects this desire to decipher the complexities of GE2020 for the general reader through the lens of a former journalist who has covered several elections.

Comprising a series of past and new articles, GE2020: Fair or Foul is the author’s take on what she regards as an uneven playing field in Singapore elections.

Assoc Prof Henson said in her book that systems here are weighted against political challengers, such as the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee, the political role of the People’s Association, and the Non-Constituency Member of Parliament scheme.

“The fact that I have a whole chapter with so many suggestions indicates that I think the GE could be ‘fairer’,” she said when asked what was her final conclusion to her book’s title. The title is also a football analogy, she added.

Some of her “silly ideals” include giving power back to Parliament — recent laws like the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act have allowed the executive branch to make decisions without going through a Parliamentary debate first, she said.

Ultimately, she hopes that the ideas expressed in her writings would be something the fourth generation (4G) of leaders from the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) would consider, she told TODAY.

Even then, GE2020 meant to her that PAP’s leadership transition is still not a done deal, said the author who titled one of her chapters “4G — still in reserve”. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said during the hustings that he would stay on to see the Covid-19 crisis through, potentially beyond his timeline of handing over the reins of the country before he turns 70 in two years’ time.

“An election that was initially meant to be an endorsement for the 4G did not happen in that way… It’s about time, don’t you think? I am basically someone who thinks that the PM should stick to the timeline he agreed to.

”The book, which is published by Epigram and is now available in bookstores, is her second following a 2014 compendium of essays titled Troublemaker.

Asked if her opinions ever landed her in hot water, Assoc Prof Henson said: “I get whacked all the time, and I’m such an old hand that I like to get whacked from the left and the right.“It’s okay because I think it makes me credible,” she added, laughing. “I don’t mind being loved by no one.” — TODAY