It’s fairly common for news organizations both local and national, to end the year with the top 10 news stories; the top 10 sports stories and the top 10 everything else. In the case of the Times-News you’ve been reading our top sports stories for over a week and will be treated to our “Top 12 in 2012” tomorrow. By now you’ve likely seen some version of national lists and despite your best efforts have seen the “Top” entertainment stories while standing in the supermarket checkout line.

After a year like 2012 it’s easy to conclude that the fiscal cliff, President Obama’s re-election and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings were among the biggest national stories of the year. It’s also likely that the Chobani opening, the election of a new Idaho house speaker and the public rejection of Tom Luna’s three education propositions would rank at the top of local stories.

However, upon closer inspection you’ll notice that all six events listed above have occurred in the past eight weeks. We’re not saying that the stories weren’t important; just that a Dec. 31 recitation of “top stories” is often more influenced by the proximity of its timing than by the eventual impact that they have on our nation, state, city or our everyday lives.

It’s called “perspective” — the ability to objectively evaluate the long-term importance of issues and stories over time. And the real top stories of 2012 may not be able to be accurately assessed for years — or even decades.

It’s possible — perhaps even likely — that a newly elected first-term member of the Idaho legislature will one day be the speaker or governor; that a newly elected member of Congress will one day be a presidential candidate.

It’s possible that our late year obsession with the nation’s financial fiscal cliff will turn out to be the latest version of Y2K; and that either compromise will occur (OK, this seems unlikely) or the cliff looked back upon as a necessary correction long overdue.

Time really will tell.

We encourage you to read and enjoy all of the “Top 10’s” or “Top 12’s” thrown your way this week, but to take them all with just a grain of salt while waiting for time to place them accurately into their long-term position of importance.

And while looking back at 2012’s top stories, it’s certainly not too early to begin looking forward. New years generally engender hope, and at the dawn of 2013 we hope that partisanship allows for compromise; that speaking gives way to listening; that finding solutions becomes more important than who gets credit for them and that the most appalling of this year’s top stories don’t find their way back onto next year’s list.

But as it is with gauging the relative importance of a story in the short-term, time will tell.