I wouldn't be surprised if German data protection agencies give news "publishers" more leeway given that they seem to be extremely influential in other domains of digital law in Germany.

But yeah, it's debatable whether "my business model depends on showing you ads from services that harvest your data via those ads" is a legitimate interest. If it is, that sets a bad precedent IMO.

FWIW, many of the data protection agencies are nowhere near as corrupt as other places. But those things tend to require court decisions.