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.

Example input: 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 But not half as astonished as when they discovered the following, unpublished facts .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 .
Example output: 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
Example 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"
Q: Let the Iraqi Army have its day. On January 6, Iraq will hold its annual Army Day parade in Baghdad . The ceremony evokes mixed feelings amongst Iraqis : after all ,  the parade marches under massive crossed swords wielded by giant bronze hands modelled on those of Saddam Hussein himself . For the Kurds it is an ominous ritual, a leftover from an era when Baghdad's military power far outstripped that of the Kurds and when Iraqi state power was used ruthlessly against northern rebellions . The stronger the Iraqi army gets, the Kurds reckon, the more chance it will be used against Kurdistan again . Iraq's Sunnis were the leading force within the Iraqi army since its foundation on January 6, 1921 . In general ,  the Sunnis fondly remember the pre-2003 army as a national institution of unrivalled prestige but view today's Iraqi army as a weak shadow of its former self, dominated by Shia officers . The views of Iraq's Shia community may be more complex . Before 2003, the Iraqi military was regularly used as a tool of oppression against the Iraqi Shia , yet many older Shia also remember the army as a symbol of modernity and Arab nationalist pride . With a Shia-led government in Baghdad, young Shia were beginning to recognise the army as a friendly institution . The collapse of Iraqi army divisions in northern and western Iraq in June 2014 dented the army's reputation, with recent victories being credited to the predominately-Shia popular mobilisation militias (al-Hashd al-Shaabi) or else the tiny cadre of special forces - the so-called Golden Division . This is a critical year for the Iraqi army , which is in danger of losing its status as the nation's premier armed force . In 2009, when the US-led"train and equip" effort reached its zenith, the Iraqi army fielded 55 combat brigades with approximately 210,000 troops . The Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MoI) fielded around 30 smaller brigades, totaling around 120,000 troops . Today the Iraqi army fields 40 weak brigades with a total combat strength of around 48,000 troops . In contrast ,  the MoI survived the summer comparatively well and now fields 24 brigades, totaling around 36,000 troops . The gap has narrowed between the two security ministries . In addition to the army and MoI, there are two other security forces that are on the rise . One is the Popular Mobilisation forces , which seem to field approximately 100,000 troops, including a well-trained offensive cadre of around 20,000 fighters . The final potential force is the National Guard that is being considered as an option by Iraqi politicians . This force would, in theory, be trained, equipped and paid by the federal government, whilst being recruited and operated by the provincial councils . In a step towards this concept, a 5,000-strong US-equipped Tribal Security Force brigade has been provided with $13.5 million worth of US weapons and training in the new US Department of Defense budget . It is now up to Iraq's government whether the country will pay these troops as part of the first National Guard units in the forthcoming 2015 budget . It is also unclear exactly which ministry would administer the training, equipping and paying of National Guard troops: the US-backed Ministry of Defense (MoD) under Minister Khalid al-Ubeidi, a Sunni from Mosul, or the MoI, led by Badr leader Mohammed Ghabban, a close lieutenant of Badr leader Hadi al-Amiri . The scheme could become a way of permanently employing the Popular Mobilisation forces in the National Guard units of the predominately-Shia southern provinces . With the Kurdish Peshmerga representing another large force of around 54 brigades with 113,000 troops, the Iraqi army is thus on-track to become one of the smaller security forces in Iraq . In 2015, the army's performance and the international support provided to Iraq's MoD will be critical factors in determining the future of this proud institution . In the background, the slow process of rebuilding the army has already begun . New half-manned brigades are popping up at training bases in Nasiriya, Kirkush and at the collection points for the shattered army divisions across north- central Iraq . More units will follow in the coming months . Meanwhile a US-funded $1.6 billion train and equip programme will aim to produce a further nine full-strength Iraqi army brigades in 2015, adding a further 45,000 troops to the army and nearly doubling its frontline combat strength . (Three Peshmerga brigades or 15,000 troops will also be re-equipped under the programme) . The first of 250 US-provided Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles have arrived in Iraq, sent directly by the United States at no cost from Afghanistan . Another 3,496 tactical vehicles (Hummers, trucks, fuel tankers and engineering vehicles) will also be provided to the Iraqi army cost-free by the US military , and Iraq will probably buy a further 1,000 newly-built M1151A1 up-armoured Hummers in 2015 . If the US follows through on its pledges of training and equipment , the Iraqi army could survive its disastrous year in 2014 and play a key role in the struggle to evict Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) forces from cities like Mosul, Tikrit, Ramadi and Fallujah . The Iraqi army can draw on some illustrious history . In 1973, it deployed 18,000 troops with 300 tanks to save Damascus during the "October War" : this feat, mustering and moving an army 1,200km in just six days, remains deeply impressive . Iraq's five lightning offensives in April, May and June of 1988 shattered the Iranian army and were textbook examples of planning and execution . If the Iraqi army can be rebuilt with Shia, Sunni Arab and Kurdish political support , and if the well-led Ministry of Defense can guide the National Guard initiative , the coming year could witness new Iraqi army victories at Mosul . Successful operations undertaken by this national institution, with deep roots in the Iraq's history, will be far more beneficial to the country than victories scored solely by Shia militias or local Sunni uprisings, either of which could further fracture Iraq .
A:
On January 6, Iraq will hold its annual Army Day parade in Baghdad