“Journal Deluxe” with Florian Schroeder: The personified vibe shift

A few weeks ago, the satirist Jan Böhmermann announced that he would no longer continue his late-night show “ZDF Magazin Royale”. The station quickly had a follow-up show ready with a new face: the presenter Florian Schroeder. There will initially be four episodes of “Journal Deluxe”: The controversial program is a test for the entire ÖRR.

The broadcast was preceded by weeks of debate about the direction of the program. “A new satirical color awaits us,” wrote ZDF in a statement in September. “One that doesn’t have blinders on.” Because now the Left and Greens should finally get rid of their fat, not just the right-wing extremists and those in power.

Schroeder's studio looks a little uglier, but larger than that of the presenter who is being replaced. In the background there is some skyline, which is certainly meant to be satirical. Schroeder greets his audience with a humble posture, and it quickly becomes clear who this is for: “Dear Leftists, Salam Aleikum (Editor’s note: Arabic for ‘Peace be with you’). I kiss your heart, brother,” Schroeder rolls his R. For the first joke in the history of his show, Florian Schroeder opts for a racist imitation, thereby making it clear who is welcome here.

The rest of the almost 43 minute long episode consists of chatter about a firewall to the Left Party and shallow jokes about men, pensions, looksmaxxing (something for the young people) or the plan to print out the Internet. Schroeder captivates the audience with his monotony in the same way that old episodes of the “Harald Schmidt Show” do today. The fact that he predicts that the Greens will eventually become junior partners of the AfD at the federal level was the only successful joke in the “Journal Deluxe”.

But humor is irrelevant for Schroeder anyway, because the actual content is the debate about his show. He constantly repeats variations of the same joke about how he is now on the right. Schroeder classifies himself as a left-wing liberal, he reveals in a video on Instagram. He believes that working on the left should no longer be left to those from outside. “I am both a left-wing extremist and a right-wing extremist on social media.” That is the best compliment you could give him.

He tries to prove again and again that he doesn't care about the criticism that preceded the show. For example, he plays a fake Spiegel cover in which he is described as “the most dangerous presenter in Germany”, doing two things at the same time: He shows that he has not understood the criticism and yet still acts as the center of the debate. It was never about Florian Schroeder, but rather about the fact that the pressure on progressive voices is increasing in society. Jan Böhmermann is certainly rather liberal, but he and his show were considered the most important “left” voice in the ÖRR.

“I, ladies and gentlemen, am the personified vibe shift,” says Schröder aptly. But stopping his show was never the goal because it is just a symptom, an alarm signal. It's about a consistent shift to the right that is affecting ever larger parts of this society. While the Merz-Klingbeil government is cutting social benefits, blaming fleeing people or people with a migrant background and pumping the money into the military instead, the Junge Union wants to use the military against protesters or the police, Schröder jokes about leftists who criticize exactly that.

Do you need a show that serves “all sides”? One can credit Schroeder for certainly having good intentions; people should talk to each other more again, he says. But the question remains as to who isn't listening to whom and between which positions there should actually be compromises.