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 But not half as astonished as when they discovered the following, unpublished facts .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: Five ways Obama could make Castro pay Cuba's $6 billion debt to Americans. In his half century reign of terror, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro committed manifold atrocities . Documented evidence reveals him to be a ruthless tyrant who endlessly abused the most basic of human rights -a man who played a pivotal role in bringing the world to the precipice of nuclear annihilation for 13 harrowing days in October of 1962 . Beyond his crimes against humanity and the callous suffering he inflicted on the people of Cuba, he ruined the lives and livelihoods of thousands of Americans . He stole their land, homes, bank accounts, possessions and businesses . He absconded with their property under the guise of "nationalization." But he is, in truth, a thief . Will his victims now be fairly compensated or otherwise see the return of their confiscated property in the wake of America's first steps toward rapprochement with Cuba? The answer is both legal and political . President Obama holds the key . So, don't get your hopes up . The Theft . In the first half of the 20th century, Americans and U.S  businesses dominated Cuba . They accumulated vast holdings of property and operated many of the most lucrative businesses . All of that ended with the Cuban Revolution in 1959 . Castro "nationalized" U.S.-owned industries and seized much of the island's private property from Americans . There was no restitution . One legal scholar called it the largest uncompensated expropriation by a foreign government in history . The U.S  retaliated with an embargo, prohibiting all trade . But the Americans who were expelled from Cuba were left holding titles and deeds to homes and businesses to which they had no access . Their property rights were dissolved , and any legal judgments obtained were unenforceable against an isolated nation that refused to recognize any authority other than its own . Thousands pursued legal recourse and sought reparations under indemnification programs established by Congress . Others filed lawsuits and secured judgments . But Castro didn't care . He repudiated the legitimacy of the restitution programs, the valuation of losses and the legal authority of the courts . This , even though Cuba admits their renegade nationalization was, and is, compensable . So what , then ,  does Castro consider fair compensation? Judging from his payouts to other aggrieved nations, it is mere pennies on the dollar . How do you value dirt? In 1961, the U.S  Commerce Department valued American property seized by the Cuban government at roughly $ 1 to 1.8 billion . Nearly 6-thousand claims were legally certified . Other published reports placed the theft as high as $ 9 billion . But the truth is, it's impossible to know -especially inasmuch as the value of everything plummeted the moment Castro took control of the island . What would the same confiscated properties be worth in today's dollars? $50 billion? $100 billion? How about nothing at all? Given how the Castro brothers have driven their economy into the ground, making Cuba one of the poorest nations in the world , valuation could be closer to dirt than dollars . Which invites another question : assuming a monetary value could somehow be devised, how would Cuba pay for it? With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Castros lost their financial benefactor . The island is blighted and broke . Even if it offered government bonds as compensation , are they worth the paper upon which they are written? How could they be secured? Reclaim the property? Theoretically, it is possible for the confiscated property to be reclaimed someday by the original owners . But that would require a dramatic Cuban transformation from socialism to democracy where private property ownership is permitted . In a recent speech, Cuban President Raul Castro insisted Cuba would not renounces its core socialist ideals as part of the deal he negotiated with President Obama to renew diplomatic relations . Even if some semblance of democracy were to be restored to Cuba in the distant future , what remains of the stolen property? No one knows how many of the private residences that were seized have been divided or fallen into decay . Some may no longer exist . And what of the current occupants? Would they allow themselves to be kicked out? The same may be true of the many farms, industries and commercial businesses that were confiscated and have been put to other uses in the last 5 decades . Yes, they have development potential in an open, free market society . But ,  again, the future of Cuba is nebulous . How realistic is the return of these vast holdings under a continuing Castro regime? What Obama should do . As a first condition to normalizing relations, President Obama should demand that all American victims of stolen property be compensated equitably . He is already obligated by law to do this under the Helms-Burton Act . But Obama has a propensity to ignore or overrule with impunity those laws he regards as misguided or inconvenient . This is one law he should follow . A second condition should be the establishment of a commission of judges with legally binding authority to render compensation decisions . Several reparation models can be studied and replicated, notably the tribunal that dispensed claims in post-unification Germany . President Obama has the power and leverage to force the Castro regime to capitulate if Cuba wants to end the sanctions and restore economic relations . But so far, he has uttered not a word about a desire to do so . And when it comes to negotiations with adversaries, Obama tends to give away the store .
Solution:
Beyond his crimes against humanity and the callous suffering he inflicted on the people of Cuba, he ruined the lives and livelihoods of thousands of Americans