Towards historical news values: Czech news media between past knowledge and current histotainment

This study deals with journalistic coverage of historical events and their contextualization. It conceptualizes the relationship between history, collective memory, and contemporary media logic. It shows the specific treatment of news values on historical topics and the penetration of entertainment elements into the resulting media content. The case study analyzes the discrepancy between the perceived importance of some historical events in Czech society and their journalistic coverage using the example of Czech media production in the year of round anniversaries in 2018. It utilizes the concept of news values and identifies similar procedures in presenting historical events in the media. The result is a more robust media reminder for those events that meet specific news values for historical topics. Content analysis has shown that the media choose more significant media coverage of other anniversaries than those considered by the Czechs to be the most important.