ARD program "Klar" | Book by Julia Ruhs: A clumsy bestseller

In a short time, journalist Julia Ruhs has achieved remarkable success. Born in 1994 and raised in the Swabian countryside, after studying political science and communications, she began a career as a regional reporter at Bayerischer Rundfunk. Her support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and her membership in the Association of Christian Democratic Students certainly didn't hinder her. The Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation soon considered Ruhs suitable for emerging as a conservative voice at a national level. She became known to a wider public when she made a commentary against gender language on the "ARD Mittagsmagazin" in 2021, followed by a tirade against "illegal immigration" on the "Tagesthemen" program in 2023.

The fact that the audience was not addressed by an old man, but by a young woman from the right, probably contributed to the success, as did the predictably heated opposition, for example from Jan Böhmermann. Ruhs was rewarded with a column in "Focus Online" and his own television show entitled "Klar." The first episode already sparked controversy: In a hair-raisingly one-sided and emotionally manipulative way, Ruhs portrayed migration as a threat.

As is common in the media industry, Julia Ruhs's television prominence is now being commercially exploited through a book release. On the cover, next to her TV face, is the title "Left-Green Opinion Power," which already says everything essential about the book's content. If Julia Ruhs possesses an unusually broad education or a special linguistic talent, she succeeds very well in concealing this in her debut. This deliberately clumsy book is guaranteed to be a bestseller in Germany.

What's written in Ruhs' book could have fit into a newspaper article, in substance. To fill 192 pages, the author quotes pages and pages from fan mail from angry citizens and writings by like-minded lateral thinkers such as Wolfgang Kubicki, Harald Martenstein, and Vince Ebert. Original ideas are sought in vain. Instead, there are "opinion corridors," "attitude journalism," "do-gooder cacophonies," a "Nazi club," and a "consensus republic"—even the good old "spiral of silence" is turning once again. Ruhs's political stance is evident when you read that she considers the "FAZ" to be "centrist" and the "Taz" to be "very left." Of course, she dutifully distances herself from the extreme right—Ruhs would like to keep her job at Bayerischer Rundfunk.

The thesis of her book is simple: People with left-wing, green views are in the vast majority in editorial offices, which is why journalism in Germany is conducted in a one-sided manner. Uncomfortable opinions and facts are suppressed. This is an age-old accusation by conservatives, one that was already frequently used under Helmut Kohl. According to Ruhs, a large portion of the public no longer feels represented by the media and is seeking out right-wing "alternative media."

They filled the resulting gap, just as the AfD filled a vacuum on the far-right. This victim narrative has resonated with right-wing clients for many years, but everyone else is likely to raise objections: Polls may prove that left-liberals are overrepresented in journalism, but right-wing media outlets evidently have no trouble filling their positions and regularly publishing with great success. Why should diversity of opinion be endangered if the public supposedly easily sees through the manipulation and then switches to right-wing media? How strong can the left-green media power be when right-wing parties are now in the majority everywhere?

Ruhs's claim that left-liberal journalists are biased seems ludicrous in light of the one-sidedness of right-wing campaign journalism, into which her own contributions fit. The accusation that leftists are using the "pity ploy"—for example, on the topic of migration—sounds hollow coming from an author who, on her television show, used the father of a girl murdered by a refugee to dramatize her theories. The call for political distance would be better off not coming from a journalist who owes her career primarily to political proportionality. The goal of all this is obvious and largely already achieved: Left-liberal journalists are supposed to strive for neutrality or balance out of a guilty conscience, while right-wing journalists simply continue to produce right-wing journalism. Julia Ruhs's book comes too late. She enters a battle that has already been won. If there ever was a left-liberal hegemony in the media, it is long gone.

A book like hers, however, is also a trap. Because so many of her theses are untenable and blatantly self-serving, it can seduce leftists into feeling above all criticism. Sometimes, however, Ruhs hits on actual weak points, even if only because she's aiming with a shotgun. For example, her explanation for why leftists still want to work in the struggling journalism industry, but rightists no longer, is as amusing as it is accurate: "Conservative-minded people are often less idealistic; money is more important to them."

The author's point that the loss of economic security and prestige in traditional journalism is leading to fatal new dependencies is also not wrong. Nor can the thesis that an overly moralizing and pedagogical attitude of left-liberal media professionals has achieved less enlightenment than defiant "reaction" among sections of the public in recent years be completely dismissed.

Progressive journalists should certainly take a self-critical look at why they have so often emerged as losers in the debates of recent years. Simply pointing to fake news and the influence of billionaires isn't enough. But they certainly don't need Julia Ruhs's book for such an analysis.

Julia Ruhs: Left-Green Opinion Power. The Division of Our Country. Langen Müller, 192 pp., paperback, €20.