Detailed Instructions: 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.
See one example below:
Problem: 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 But not half as astonished as when they discovered the following, unpublished facts .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 .
Solution: 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"

Problem: Lebanon has just done the unthinkable. Lebanon has just done the apparently unthinkable and placed visa control on the entry of Syrians into the country . Before, the situation was effectively a free flow that had resulted in Syrians, mostly refugees, amounting today to 20 percent of the population on Lebanese soil . Imagine 12 million French in the UK today . The Lebanese government has assured international agencies that it will still permit and facilitate humanitarian cases , but the step is a telling one . The real story behind this is the annihilation of borders from Baghdad to Beirut . ISIL is one stark and ugly manifestation of that reality but so are the refugees, a tragic event that has also affected Turkey and Jordan . This zone that once facilitated trade is now closer to scenes from Road Warrior - or the sad march of the displaced . The disintegration of Sykes Picot has blurred nation-states as cross border allegiances fight it out on a series of fronts and through a myriad of forces from Jubhat al-Nusra, Shia militias, Peshmergas, to the Lebanese Armed forces to the now infamous ISIL . Borders don't seem to mean much in this Middle East , if they ever did . The refugees are the terrible consequence and victims of these conflicts that plague this area . The best response to them is not visas but a proper joint response by the Lebanese government assisted by international insititutions . The reality however is that the former is incapable , and the latter insufficiently funded to deal with such a massive influx . As a result, many refugees are living in terrible conditions . The other harsh reality is that the Lebanese government has said that this will not affect Syrian "visitors" to Lebanon . There are six classes of visitors in the new system and the Syrian middle class and rich are unlikley to be affected . Walid Jumblatt stated that his country should differentiate between "refugees who are fleeing death and destruction in Syria after they lost their homes," and those who intend to be politically active , but the reality is that the poorest will be most affected . Indeed ,  it's a large question mark whether Lebanon has the capacity to even implement the measure it has just taken . The Syrian presence in Lebanon is so pervasive it may well be impossible to manage the situation, except to manage some future inflow . Furthermore ,  the idea of Lebanon, a country barely treading water, being able to manage such a problem is unrealistic . Only a regional and international effort of significance can manage such a scale , and regional powers are busy carving their fiefdoms and creating the very problem rather than solving it . The plight of the refugees is key but it is also important to perceive this event from the perspective of the host country; a small nation with very poor governance and infrastructure in the midst of regional turmoil . In a way, this is Lebanon's very small response to the erosion of Sykes Picot . Syrians are indeed everywhere in Lebanon . In Beirut, and in every village and town one visits . Flights from Beirut to Europe are one-third to half full of Syrians . Indeed ,  given this massive presence and Lebanon's already poor infrastructure and socio-economic state, it is an achievement that the Syrian crisis has not led to further deterioration in the country . The relations in Lebanon between the two peoples, despite some racism and ugly incidents, could have been far worse . Until now, Lebanese hosting of the refugees is characterised by neither generosity nor enmity, but by a passive acceptance of fate . This is partially driven by the fact that Syrians are culturally and linguistically akin , and some sectors of the Lebanese economy, e.g  construction, remain highly dependent on Syrian workers . How this will square with the new visa rules is unknown . More importantly, this step can be seen as part of a series of recent indirect actions that attempt to strengthen the Lebanese state, or at least make the pretense of doing so . Minister of Health Abu Faour has been on an intense and mediatic campaign to clean up the food industry in Lebanon, cracking down restaurants, slaughterhouses, and airport storage sites . Despite complaints, this clean up, if it lasts, is a welcome step for Lebanese ; it is national, potentially affects everyone positively, and is an act of government . Second ,  in an echo of the Nahr el-Bared campaign, the Lebanese army is taking responsibility in the Northern Bekaa and Hermel areas against the radical groups who are effectively fighting the Syrian war on Lebanese soil . Pride in the Lebanese army is rising . There are also rumours that the Lebanese government will also take on the murderous Indie-500 speeders on Lebanse highways in the spring . If this does occur in addition to bold step of visas for Syrians , a move that would have been unheard of when Lebanon was effectively a vassal state of Damascus, then indeed Lebanon could see the bare beginnings of emerging out of chaos through these small attempts . The political realities in Lebanon are of course more complicated and illusory than this . Many only see in all of the above feeble attempts to deflect from the reality of a total political vaccuum . Indeed , the Lebanese visa step is obviously not humanitarian , it is a self- interested attempt to stem the tide, put a thumb in the dyke, and avoid the emergent chaos in the Middle East . It would be better if the Lebanese had the magnamity, or much more importantly, the capacity , to continue simply receiving all Syrians , but they are barely running their own country . Compassion requires an orderly method and capacities in order to be effectively pursued , i.e the Lebanese need a functioning state of their own to handle such a crisis properly . Indeed ,  Lebanon has mostly escaped the wars next door not out of wisdom or discipline, or any energetic international diplomacy, but because the memories of that conflict are still vivid in the minds of Lebanese adults . No one will go to war because they remember what war costs , and because they know how little they derived from the devastation . The result of 15 years of fighting was that the state was further weakened in favour of sectarianism, cronyism and corruption , while the Lebanese kept on doing what they do best, make money and enjoy life, living for today and certainly not tomorrow . Meanwhile, social and environmental erosion make the country less and less livable by the day . The recent steps however, triggered by political challenges and health risks, signal some early and feeble attempts at a return of the state, or at the very least preserving the semblance of the old order, the shadow of a nation-state, amidst the dark fluidity and chaos surging from there to Kurdistan . It took the Lebanese 40 years and external pressures to begin to think about getting their house in order , if that is indeed what is happening today . Hopefully, it won't take their neighbours that long to start to address the necessary basics of life .
Solution:
Lebanon has just done the apparently unthinkable and placed visa control on the entry of Syrians into the country