Part 1. Definition
Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.
Part 2. Example
Our 'impartial' broadcasters have become mouthpieces of the elite. When people say they have no politics, it means that their politics aligns with the status quo . None of us are unbiased , none removed from the question of power . We are social creatures who absorb the outlook and opinions of those with whom we associate, and unconciously echo them . Objectivity is impossible . The illusion of neutrality is one of the reasons for the rotten state of journalism, as those who might have been expected to hold power to account drift thoughtlessly into its arms . But until I came across the scandal currently erupting in Canada, I hadn't understood just how quickly standards are falling . In 2013 reporters at CBC, Canada's equivalent of the BBC, broke a major story . They discovered that RBC - Royal Bank of Canada - had done something cruel and unusual even by banking standards . It was obliging junior staff to train a group of temporary foreign workers , who would then be given the staff's jobs . Just after the first report was aired, according to the website Canadaland, something odd happened : journalists preparing to expand on the investigation were summoned to a conference call with Amanda Lang, CBC's senior business correspondent and a star presenter . The reporters she spoke to say she repeatedly attempted to scuttle the story, dismissing it as trivial and dull . They were astonished . But not half as astonished as when they discovered the following, unpublished facts . First ,  that Lang had spoken at a series of events run or sponsored by RBC  - for which she appears, on one occasion, to have been paid around 15,000 Canadian dollars . Second , that she was booked to speak at an event sponsored by the outsourcing company the bank had hired to implement the cruel practice exposed by her colleagues . Third , that her partner is a board member at RBC . Lang then interviewed the bank's chief executive on her own show . When he dismissed the story as unfair and misleading , she did not challenge him . That evening she uncritically repeated his talking points on CBC's main current affairs programme . Her interests, again, were not revealed . Then she wrote a comment article for the Globe and Mail newspaper suggesting that her colleagues' story arose from an outdated suspicion of business, was dangerous to Canada's interests, and was nothing but "a sideshow" . Here's what she said about the bank's employment practices:"It's called capitalism, and it isn't a dirty word." Canadaland, which exposed Lang's conflicts last week, found that other journalists at the broadcaster were furious, but too frightened to speak on the record . But after CBC tried to dismiss the scandal as "half-truths based on anonymous sources" , Kathy Tomlinson, the reporter who had broken the story about the bank, bravely spoke publicly to the website . The following morning, staff in her office arrived to find this message spelt out in magnets on their fridge:"Jesse Brown snitches get stitches" . Jesse Brown is Canadaland's founder . CBC refused to answer my questions , and I have not had a response from Lang . It amazes me that she remains employed by CBC , which has so far done nothing but bluster and berate its critics . This is grotesque . But it's symptomatic of a much wider problem in journalism : those who are supposed to scrutinise the financial and political elite are embedded within it . Many belong to a service-sector aristocracy, wedded metaphorically (sometimes literally) to finance . Often unwittingly, they amplify the voices of the elite, while muffling those raised against it . A study by academics at the Cardiff School of Journalism examined the BBC Today programme's reporting of the bank bailouts in 2008 . It discovered that the contributors it chose were "almost completely dominated by stockbrokers, investment bankers, hedge fund managers and other City voices . Civil society voices or commentators who questioned the benefits of having such a large finance sector were almost completely absent from coverage." The financiers who had caused the crisis were asked to interpret it . The same goes for discussions about the deficit and the perceived need for austerity . The debate has been dominated by political and economic elites , while alternative voices - arguing that the crisis has been exaggerated, or that instead of cuts, the government should respond with Keynesian spending programmes or taxes on financial transactions, wealth or land- have scarcely been heard . Those priorities have changed your life : the BBC helped to shape the political consensus under which so many are now suffering . The BBC's business reporting breaks its editorial guidelines every day by failing to provide alternative viewpoints . Every weekday morning, the Today programme grovels to business leaders for 10 minutes . It might occasionally challenge them on the value or viability of their companies, but hardly ever on their ethics . Corporate critics are shut out of its business coverage - and almost all the rest . On BBC News at Six, the Cardiff researchers found, business representatives outnumbered trade union representatives by 19 to one . "The BBC tends to reproduce a Conservative, Eurosceptic, pro-business version of the world," the study said . This, remember, is where people turn when they don't trust the corporate press . While the way in which the media handle the stories that are covered is bad enough , the absence of coverage is even worse . If an issue does not divide the main political parties , it vanishes from view , though the parties now disagree on hardly anything . Another study reveals a near total collapse of environmental coverage on ITV and BBC news: it declined from 2.5% (ITV) and 1.6% (BBC) of total airtime in 2007 to, respectively, 0.2% and 0.3% in 2014 . There were as many news stories on these outlets about Madeleine McCann in 2014 - seven years after her disappearance - as there were about all environmental issues put together . Those entrusted to challenge power are the loyalists of power . They rage against social media and people such as Russell Brand, without seeing that the popularity of alternatives is a response to their own failures: their failure to expose the claims of the haut monde, their failure to enlist a diversity of opinion, their failure to permit the audience to see that another world is possible . If even the public sector broadcasters parrot the talking points of the elite , what hope is there for informed democratic choice? o Twitter: @georgemonbiot . A fully referenced version of this article can be found at Monbiot.com .
Answer: The illusion of neutrality is one of the reasons for the rotten state of journalism, as those who might have been expected to hold power to account drift thoughtlessly into its arms We are social creatures who absorb the outlook and opinions of those with whom we associate, and unconciously echo them
Explanation: The text span selected for thesis is meaningful and correct. Pay attention that there can be more than one correct thesis for each article. Some meaningful subsets of this thesis also can be accepted as a thesis, like : "none of us are unbiased"
Part 3. Exercise
From Ferguson to immigration: Obama's divide and conquer political strategy has failed our nation. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows support for illegal immigrants at 48 percent, a historic low . This is what the president's cynical manipulation of the Hispanic community has delivered: a hardening of American attitudes . The same distancing will likely occur between blacks and whites as the demonstrations over the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and Staten Island roll on . Whereas only recently a sizable majority of blacks and whites declared themselves comfortable with the state of race relations in the country , pictures of looting and the inflammatory rhetoric of self-interested activists like Al Sharpton will inevitably sharpen racial divides . The insistent proclamations from Attorney General Eric Holder that our justice system is biased, and the president's agreement that the law "feels like it's being applied in a discriminatory fashion," do not help . Today, Obama's well-honed political tactics of dividing and conquering-- so essential to electing a virtual nobody to the Oval Office-- have come asunder . The interest groups wooed by the president have begun to turn against him . Some feel betrayed ; others understand that their demands have isolated them from their fellow countrymen . The only group still giving the president more than a 50 percent approval rating is voters under 3 . For the rest of the poor boobs not caught up in the Obama splinter sweep-- they are eager to elect a successor who might look out for them . Turns out, those forgotten folks are actually in the majority, and just voted in a Republican Senate . According to the Quinnipiac poll, 48 percent of voters think immigrants living in the U.S  illegally should be allowed to stay . That's down from 57 percent last year, and lower than ever . Moreover ,  some 35 percent of the voting public thinks undocumented aliens should be deported -- a record high, and up from 26 percent last year . That's in spite of insistent hectoring from the White House about the moral imperative of providing a legal path for those who are here illegally . Congratulations, Mr  Obama, for ramping up opposition to immigration reform . How to deal with illegal immigrants is not the only issue on which the nation's attitudes are hardening . Last August, after the shooting of Michael Brown (but before the grand jury decision in the case), a New York Times/CBS poll surveyed voters on their attitudes about race . Asked whether race relations had improved or soured during President Obama's time in office, 35 percent of respondents said they had gotten worse , while 52 percent said they had stayed the same . Only 10 percent thought the president had had a positive impact on relations - 8 percent of whites and 17 percent of blacks . That is an impressive underachievement from our first African-American president . Overall ,  78 percent of respondents, when asked about "race relations in your community," said they were "generally good." That included 82 percent of whites and 73 percent of blacks -- a strong vote of confidence, especially from a group that was much less positive about the country as a whole, with only 47 percent saying U.S  race relations were "generally good." This split suggests that people have absorbed the narrative that our country has a race problem not from their personal experience in their own communities, but from the media or our political leaders . The most compelling aspect of that story line entails racial bias in law enforcement . Many initiatives, from decriminalizing marijuana possession to de-emphasizing tactics like "stop and frisk," have been promulgated based on the fact that more blacks than whites end up on the wrong side of the law . Holder has even dumbed down school discipline measures, arguing they constitute an example of racial bias . The Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga sheds some welcome light on this issue . According to surveys conducted by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics over the past 20 years, the number of confrontations between Americans and the police has declined, as has the use of force by law enforcement officials . Most important, perhaps, is that the declines were recorded not just for whites, but for all races . In 2002, 173,000 African-Americans reported a "use of force"; in 2011, that was down to 130,000 . Nearly 83 percent of blacks who were involved in traffic stops(the most numerous encounters) agreed with the statement,"When I was stopped by the police, the officers acted properly." That figure was up from 78 percent in 2002 . As for so-called "street stops," the Bureau reports,"In 2011, less than 1% of the 241.4 million U.S  residents age 16 or older were involved in a street stop" ; further ,  "no differences were observed in the percentage of non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, and Hispanic populations age 16 or older involved in a street stop." So much for unfair profiling . Under 3 percent of police encounters involve "street stops" of an involuntary nature ; of those stopped (likely not a happy crew), two-thirds said the cops behaved "properly and respectfully." This review does not suggest a law enforcement community reviled by the African-American community, or the country . President Obama has tried to curry favor with blacks, Hispanics, women, the young and the poor by convincing them that they suffer from injustices, that they are victimized by the one percent, by law enforcement, by corporations or insurers -- or by Republicans . Americans aren't buying it . Increasingly, they see a country victimized by an incompetent president .
Answer:
Today, Obama's well-honed political tactics of dividing and conquering-- so essential to electing a virtual nobody to the Oval Office-- have come asunder This is what the president's cynical manipulation of the Hispanic community has delivered: a hardening of American attitudes