Logan: Newspapers have always focused on ephemeral matters while ignoring important societal changes. For this and other reasons, old newspapers are useless to both amateur and professional historians. Mendez: But news stories, along with popular art, provide a wealth of information about what the people of an era thought and felt. On the basis of their statements, Logan and Mendez are committed to disagreeing over whether ['newspapers ought to focus more on the types of stories they have glossed over in the past', 'newspapers accurately report the most important changes taking place in a society', 'the study of previous eras should include investigations of the conventions of newspaper reporting', 'newspaper reports from former eras are useful sources of material for understanding the past']