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.
One example is below.
Q: 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 But not half as astonished as when they discovered the following, unpublished facts .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 .
A: 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
Rationale: 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: A defining moment for the French right. France lost five of its most prominent political cartoonists yesterday . For decades, they had mocked the powerful, the sacred, the dictators, and all those who believed themselves above criticism . These cartoonists felt there was no better way to fight fundamentalism than through derision and laughter . The late Charb, Charlie Hebdo's editor-in-chief, was killed, evoking the words of Spanish republican icon Dolores Ibarruri, who was known to boast:"I'd rather die standing than live kneeling." It is this very impertinence, this freedom to rebel against ideologies, structures and hierarchies through art and literature, that has been targeted . France is known for its triad "liberty, equality, brotherhood" engraved at the helm of every school, on all official buildings . This motto attributed to French theologian and writer Francois Fenelon at the end of the 17th century was popularised during the French Revolution , when popular unrest toppled religious and authoritative powers . This philosophy was central to Charlie Hebdo's editorial line and promoted by Charb, known for his firm leftist stands, and for advocating for more justice and wealth redistribution . Yet ,  the likely beneficiaries of this heinous act will be the very opponents of this libertarian and humanist stance . A few hours after the events, extreme right leader Marine Le Pen immediately seized the opportunity to unleash her short-sighted Islamophobic attacks . While spontaneous gatherings and demonstrations took place across the country to show the country's grief and support for the victims , Le Pen dissuaded her supporters from participating . She later set conditions for taking part in the Republican march organised for next Sunday . This political move is unsurprising from Le Pen . Her political platform is built upon her populist claims of the threats stemming from Islam and more generally, from immigrants . She built her political success on the rise of communitarianism and the growing rifts and dissent in French society . A solidarity march gathering all religions and all sectors of the population in favour of freedom of the press does not play to her political hand . While the French Muslim authorities have called on every mosque in the country to strongly condemn this act of terrorism and encourage participation in the march , Le Pen would rather continue her own crusade alone and capitalise on growing French fears . She would rather call for"open war on Islam" than demonstrate with the 99.99 percent of French Muslims who respect the Republican law . Her traditional supporters, such as skinhead groups "Riposte Laique" and "Bloc identitaire", have called for a "civil war in the country against Islamisation" . But they have failed to mention that Ahmed Merabet, the brave policeman who tried to stop the terrorists and was shot dead in the street, was himself Muslim and defended French Republican values through a lifetime of service in the police force . While traditional parties call for national unity in a peaceful march , Le Pen's supporters blow on the ashes of societal discontent , encouraging retaliation against this act of terrorism . Mosques were reportedly shot at in Le Mans at midnight , a kebab restaurant was bombed in Villefranche . Barbary is answered by stupidity . Ironically, Le Pen will likely benefit from the fears and shock after the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, a magazine that has been one of her strongest opponents . Le Pen can hardly call for the protection of freedom of the press when her own party has regularly tried to limit it by selecting the newspapers and networks who could cover her meetings and ask her questions . Two years ago, her own father vehemently criticised Charlie Hebdo , calling the publication a rag after it ridiculed his political party . Marine Le Pen herself then officially asked for the resignation of any journalist that would show Charlie Hebdo's cover on national TV . Similarly ,  Nicolas Sarkozy is an awkward defender of Charlie Hebdo . First ,  his strategy to win back the presidency in 2017 is to stress on the inability of Francois Hollande to fill the shoes of president, constantly criticising his lack of authority and charisma . The current terrorist crisis is a defining moment for Hollande who might now well prove his capacity to unite a grieving society . More importantly, Sarkozy can hardly support Charlie Hebdo and freedom of the press when he himself personally demanded the resignation of one of its cartoonists in 2008 . At the time Sarkozy was furious that the magazine had published a cartoon mocking his son Jean Sarkozy , whose ambition dwarves the legendary one of his father . Charlie Hebdo described Jean Sarkozy's marriage to a very wealthy Jewish heiress as an attempt to secure his future after failing to finish his university degree . Nicolas Sarkozy managed to obtain the dismissal of the cartoonist Sine and put him on trial for anti-Semitism . Ironically, his colleagues were not so fortunate yesterday when faced with fundamentalists claiming Charlie Hebdo was an enemy of the Muslim prophet .
A:
France lost five of its most prominent political cartoonists yesterday