In a podcast with Paul Ronzheimer, ARD chairman Florian Hager conceded that public broadcasters have often lectured AfD voters, that migration coverage was “probably not critical enough” in places, and that journalists from academic backgrounds can lose touch with everyday realities.

During the podcast, Hager distinguished AfD politicians from their voters and said concerns about representation and trust in public media are a problem that public media must acknowledge as a problem.

“I am trying to create a separation between AfD politicians and the people who vote for the AfD,” he said, noting that the concerns of voters should not be ignored. “And if there’s a feeling that we don’t represent them, that they aren’t seen, or that they can no longer trust us, then it’s a huge issue for us. And then you can’t say it is their problem… but it’s our problem.”

These are rare admissions from an ARD chief. However, in a country where approximately a third of voters support the AfD, the party and its voters can no longer be swept aside by public media as anger over mass immigration soars.

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In general, public trust has eroded in public broadcasting while the AfD consolidates its position at nearly 30 percent in national polls.

Public media’s trust problem is measurable and persistent. A Media Tenor “Zukunftsindex Deutschland” survey of more than 3,000 people found only 31 percent trust ARD, ZDF and related programs; among 16- to 29-year-olds the figure was 25 percent, and among AfD supporters it dropped to 15 percent.

WDR/Infratest Dimap data from spring 2025 put institutional trust in public broadcasting at 55 percent overall, with a clear East-West gap (higher in the West, lower in the East).

Compulsory fees continue to fund a system whose audience is shrinking relative to the political landscape, and the people who have to pay those fees are even willing to hold public demonstrations over the issue. t has strong echoes of the protests against the BBC.in Britain, where taxpaying Brits who vote for conservative parties have launched campaign after campaign for the abolition of compulsory fees to support the network.

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The ideological skew inside the German journalism industry helps explain much of the uncritical migration coverage. Hager is now being forced to confront this issue, but the problem is that the vast majority of journalists working in public media are extremely supportive of left-green parties, and many of these same journalists could even be considered open-border extremists.

The 2024 TU Dortmund “Journalism and Democracy” survey of 525 journalists — with 40 percent of respondents working for public broadcasters — found 41 percent leaning toward the Greens, 16 percent toward the SPD, 6 percent toward the Left, and only 8 percent toward the CDU.

As for the AfD, it either was not listed or received support so low, at below 1 percent, that it was considered “negligible.”

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In total, among those expressing a preference, left-green parties accounted for roughly 82 percent of journalists. Green Party support among journalists was several times the party’s national polling level at the time.

Meanwhile, the party that is supported about a third of the population, the AfD, does not even have 1 percent representation in the public media networks, even though those same networks are obligated by law to represent a full spectrum of the public’s political opinions.

What does this mean in practice? When the people producing the news overwhelmingly favor parties that have defended high immigration levels, expansive asylum rules, and framing that treats immigration restriction as morally unjustified, then the type of “uncritical” reporting described by Hager is the predictable outcome — not an accidental oversight.

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Hager’s attitude has been repeated not only throughout German politics, but across the entire Western world. The elite, the political establishment, and the organs of the press offer a constant platitude, claiming to have not “paid enough attention” to voters and that we “need to do better” on the topic of immigration. This has been repeated ad nauseam for decades, and is only amplified when right-wing parties opposed to immigration get closer to power.

They are ultimately empty words at the end of the day meant to paper over a real crisis. Is Hager going to hire more journalists who support the AfD? The thought would never cross his mind. Is he going to start reporting on the nationality of suspects in crime reports? Highly unlikely. Is he going to start running more pieces critical of immigration? This is also unlikely, although there may be some subtle steering toward acknowledging there is a problem but that the public should never vote for the AfD to potentially fix the problem.

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Notably, he also expresses worry that an AfD-led government may place curbs on the cash cow that feeds the ARD with tens of millions of euros in mandatory fees on German citizens, who have to pay to keep the ZDF and ARD running whether they like it or not.

Hager says he wants to separate AfD voters from the party and address feelings of being unseen. That is tactically sensible for an institution facing state-treaty threats and potential cuts to its funding. Yet the parties that dominate journalistic preferences – the Greens, SPD, and large parts of the center-left spectrum – continue to support higher immigration and more open policies that sharply contrast with the AfD’s core demand for sharp reductions and stricter controls.

That problem is not going away.

Even if Hager truly wanted to turn the ship around and gain back the trust of AfD voters, would there even be any institutional support for such a change of pace within the ARD itself?

The reality is that a majority of Germans want an immigration moratorium and mass deportations. They strongly reject immigration for Muslim countries. The ARD and its sprawling staff remain categorically opposed to these concepts.

For an example of this, it is important to review the case of Julia Ruhs. Her case shows, along with the cancellation of her show, that reporting critically on immigration can lead to a witch hunt within the German public broadcasters. Remix News covered the moment she learned public broadcasters had dropped her show.

A female German journalist wanted to research the topic of gang rapes by migrants in Bavaria but was labeled "racist" and "right-wing" by her colleagues. Julia Ruhs, a high-profile television presenter, said it is still a "taboo" to research topics regarding why "certain population groups are more susceptible to committing sexual offenses." "That’s when I realized the whole editorial imbalance that when you dedicate yourself to such a topic." She added that it became an environment where she was told: "You’re not allowed to say that and you’re totally racist." Ruhs is currently at the center of a significant "Cancel Culture" and media sovereignty debate in Germany. She is often described as a rare conservative voice within the German public broadcasting landscape, which is frequently criticized for having a "left-green" bias. In 2025, Ruhs was chosen to host a new experimental debate format called "Klar," co-produced by the northern public broadcaster NDR and the southern BR. The show’s mission was to reach viewers who felt alienated by mainstream media by tackling sensitive topics like migration, Covid-19, and the farmers’ protests. After the first episode on migration, a massive internal wave of criticism hit. Approximately 250 NDR employees signed an open letter distancing themselves from the show, accusing Ruhs of one-sided and populist reporting. In September 2025, the NDR officially decided to drop Ruhs as a presenter for their portion of the show, citing a desire to move toward a "multi-moderator concept." Ruhs responded on social media, calling the decision a "disgrace" and claiming she was "too right-wing for the NDR." High-profile politicians like CSU’s Markus Söder (Bavaria) and Daniel Günther (Schleswig-Holstein) criticized the NDR for stifling diversity of opinion. While the NDR canceled her, the Bavarian broadcaster BR stood by her. New episodes of "Klar" are planned from the BR broadcaster for 2026.

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 18, 2026

Hager is aware of this problem to a large degree. He also cites police and local officials repeatedly describing persistent problems over migration. However, he is offering nothing more than a weak mea culpa on behalf of years of ARD reporting, which has gone to great lengths to whitewash the growing problems with mass immigration.

Most importantly, Hager does not address how the ARD actually plans to change its reporting and win back the trust of these voters. Additionally, he completely fails to confront the structural imbalance in who is hired, trained, and promoted, or the compulsory funding that insulates the system from market feedback.

Damage control without altering the underlying editorial incentives or the immigration positions of the favored parties is unlikely to restore broad trust from AfD voters. If he was serious about truly diverse representation in the public media, he would require measurable diversification of political backgrounds inside the newsrooms and reporting that treats migration outcomes – crime correlations, integration failures, fiscal costs, and local pressures – with the same rigor applied to other policy areas.

The post As AfD party soars, ARD public media chief’s admission that migration coverage in Germany was ‘probably not critical enough’ is not serious appeared first on Remix News.

from RT: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

A first-place finish for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the upcoming Saxony-Anhalt elections on Sept. 6 is almost assured. The party is expected to score at least 40 percent of the vote, enabling it to outperform all other parties by a wide margin. Anything less than an absolute majority, which would require around 43 percent or higher, will be seen as a defeat. However, for the AfD’s long-term prospects, this “defeat” may indeed be the best outcome for the party.

Should the AfD win control of all of Saxony-Anhalt, it would be its first time in power, and suddenly, it would have to show results, including managing budgets, dealing with administrative constraints, wrestling with state-level legal limits, and facing potential crises. Left-wing parties, along with establishment parties like the Christian Democrats (CDU), can still put up major roadblocks that will stymie the AfD’s effectiveness to govern even at the state level.

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With power comes scrutiny and potentially scandal. Any false moves and the AfD’s mishaps could be amplified to a disproportionate level by a press friendly to the left-wing and establishment German parties.

If the AfD falls just short of an absolute majority in Saxony-Anhalt, the CDU would be forced to form a ridiculous and complex multi-party coalition with parties it should not realistically ever partner with, including the Left Party and BSW, making it appear as if it were some kind of cartel player ooking to do anything to stay in power. In fact, this could create a severe internal crisis for the CDU, which officially maintains an incompatibility resolution banning formal cooperation with both the AfD and The Left. Remarkably, Merz is already talking about cooperation with the Left Party, a position that no doubt many CDU voters would balk at.

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In such a scenario, the AfD’s chances at obtaining federal power could only be boosted. There are already some reports that many in the CDU privately want an AfD victory.

Saxony-Anhalt is also one of the smallest states in Germany and federal and EU rules still govern much of the actions the AfD would be able to take, making the party look weak and ineffectual. It is worth looking at the individual member states within the EU, where the leaders of entire countries, like prime ministers like Giorgia Meloni, are effectively blocked from a range of policies, including strict immigration enforcement and deportation. Courts, EU policies, and treaty conventions appear to turn conservatives into mush.

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At the individual state level, the AfD will have even less power. The AfD could still fall back on the argument that there is little it can do at the state level, but voters are not very receptive to such arguments. Voters typically punish any sign of weakness. It is never enough for a political party to say: “We cannot do this because of XYZ.” Voters only see “we cannot do this.”

The AfD cannot suddenly turn on the taps for cheap Russian energy, it cannot deport illegal migrants with ease, and it cannot implement an economic turnaround policy that will rejuvenate an eastern region that continues to struggle. That would all require serious federal power. Even then, there are powerful constraints in place.

Those on the right are notorious for promoting “victory through defeat” – and lots of defeat. It could even be labeled an “accelerationist” strategy. It is valid to criticize this approach, but losing does have its time and place.

The AfD can still benefit from victory

Of course, an AfD victory is not without its merits. It is worth evaluating the benefits while being realistic about their limitations.

While a victory and the arduous nature of governing could puncture the mystique of the AfD for many voters, it would also normalize the party in the eyes of Germans. The AfD would in effect be governing an entire state on its own, calling its own shots in education, industry, and security. All the credit for any successes goes directly to the party. Even if the AfD fails to enact many of its reforms, the sky will not fall either. Saxony-Anhalt will not unleash pogroms against migrants and life will mostly continue as normal.

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Still, the risks are high for the AfD. The common thread among voters is extremely high dissatisfaction with the ruling parties, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and business-as-usual politics, which all the other parties represent to varying degrees. Critics of the AfD claim the party is merely a “protest party” that voters are supporting only due to the disastrous policies of the current government. The reality is that those “disastrous policies” are core policies built into the operating systems of these parties, which call for more mass immigration, more deindustrialization, and less security for citizens.

At between 28 to 29 percent of the vote, the AfD has long since catapulted out of the realm of mere “protest party” and now represents a serious political force — a reckoning for the establishment parties and left-wing cartels that have long dominated German politics. Nevertheless, if the CDU and SPD, for example, were more competent, there is no doubt that the AfD’s support would take a hit. There are still protest voters backing the AfD who can switch their allegiance quickly.

The question is now how high the AfD can go at the federal level. What is the party’s limit and what is truly holding it back from breaking the 30-35 percent mark in federal polling? The AfD’s sister party in Austria, the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), has long since achieved such numbers in terms of support.

The AfD still has plenty of growth that it can achieve in conservative Western states like Bavaria, but it will never obtain an absolute majority at the federal level. Forming a coalition with the CDU is still the party’s long-term goal. If the CDU is forced to form an absurd coalition in Saxony-Anhalt, it could push the CDU to be more open to an AfD alliance in the future at the federal level, as a choir of dissenting voices grow within the CDU over the plethora of left-wing alliances being formed across Germany.

The AfD ultimately needs to make a major breakthrough in federal elections, where the true power lies. Saxony-Anhalt is currently the only state in Germany where AfD has a chance of governing with an absolute majority. Perhaps in the future, Saxony may also fall into this category, but at the most, that would then be two states. The path to power does not lie through governing states, they can only be a stepping stone at the very most.

The post Will an AfD victory turn into defeat? appeared first on Remix News.