"We thought we were in a civil war here. That was a nice feeling."

Julia Ruhs sought confrontation. "What comes next may not be to everyone's liking," she said at the start of the first episode of her reportage format "Klar," in which she addressed asylum policy.

From Nicole Diekmann to Jan Böhmermann, the magazine was subsequently widely criticized – which Ruhs exploited to her advantage. Without addressing the content of the reviews, she summarily lumped half the media landscape together, from "taz" and "Spiegel" to "Titanic" and "Übermedien." "Anyone who also frequently finds the aforementioned media outlets and people highly questionable has come to the right place!"

From an attention-grabbing perspective, her self-referential advertising strategy may have helped her reach and retain her desired target audience, but it remains questionable whether this corresponds to her desired image of serious journalism. In the second issue on Wednesday, Ruhs looked at agriculture – while remaining true to her tabloid style.

"Exhausted, disrespected, frustrated by politics – our farmers," she said, introducing the BR and NDR production. Farmers were annoyed by price pressure and bureaucracy, but "above all" they felt "excluded" and "defamed."

In its second issue, "Klar" repeatedly returns to Thomas Schneekloth, a 14th-generation farmer and "veteran of the farmers' protests." He says he really should "just follow God," if it weren't for the European Union.

Every day, he receives "some kind of bad news" from politics and business, which he shares with his fellow activists in the protest movement "Land schafft Verbindung" (LsV). With just five clicks, he can quickly inform 5,000 people, as he proudly demonstrates. He sees himself as the one "who's helping to get people fired up a little bit."

What this can look like in practice becomes clear when the farmer recounts a demonstration in Brussels where Belgian and French colleagues, in particular, set fires. "We thought we were in a civil war here," he recalls with a laugh. "It was a nice feeling to get attention."

He wants to distance himself from the image of the radical farmer, but the farmer from Bersbek can hardly conceal a certain amusement. Julia Ruhs, at least, notes in a critical comment that three police officers were also injured during the protests in the Belgian capital.

His political stance has remained the same, Schneekloth asserts. A "total leftward shift," however, has swept through the CDU. He used to be "firmly committed to the CDU," but for a time he supported the Free Voters. Now, his only option in elections is the AfD, "the other conservative party."

What does he think about the fact that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the party as right-wing extremist? "I don't believe it." The party wants to protect local agriculture from foreign competition. The fact that they want to eliminate subsidies doesn't bother him. He opposes farmers being dependent on them anyway.

Ralf Arnold from Allgäu, who had to convert his organic farm to a conventional one for bureaucratic reasons, sees it similarly. He feels "relegated to the status of a supplicant." Julia Ruhs echoes his sentiments. "Many farmers don't want subsidies at all," the journalist claims, "but rather fair prices for their products."

The threat of additional burdens in the form of an agricultural vehicle tax and the abolition of the tax relief on agricultural diesel were the focus of last year's farmers' protests. Thanks to the Farmers' Association, these key demands are now included in the coalition agreement.

Günther Felßner was supposed to be a member of the federal government. However, the president of the Bavarian Farmers' Association withdrew his candidacy for the position of Minister of Agriculture after Animal Rebellion representatives literally climbed onto his roof and lit flares.

"Nip it in the bud!" he shouts after the "terrorists" on "Klar." The activists in question come across as "well-behaved" in conversation, as Ruhs notes. They don't distance themselves from their action, but they "may not want to use flares as a visual means of action" in the future.

Towards the end, Cem Özdemir, who recently left office, highlighted the demanding nature of the position of Federal Minister of Agriculture. Farmers expressed "sometimes very different wishes," said the Green Party politician. "Some say environmental regulations should be abolished, others say the exact opposite."

Only the desire for planning security and the paralyzing bureaucracy unite them all. Alois Rainer seems to sense this. "You've had to endure a lot, too," the CSU politician says to his predecessor during the handover of office, shrugging his shoulders in confusion. "Let's see what awaits me."

Dominik Lippe regularly reports on the evening political talk shows for WELT. The biologist is a graduate of the Axel Springer FreeTech Academy.