It took me about two weeks to buy Time magazine’s 2012 year-in-review issue. For days I stood in bookstores and grocery store lines reading parts of it. The only thing keeping me from claiming its glossy pages as my own was the $12.99 price tag. But eventually, I caved, to which my friend asked, “You spent a Target gift card on that?”

Why did I feel the need to purchase the issue? Well, first of all, I’m a news junkie. But more specifically, I’m amazed by how much happens in the world in the course of a year and how much we easily forget.

After reading the magazine, I thought about how the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was not included. The shooting, which happened Dec. 14, occurred shortly after Time’s publication date.

The shooting’s absence struck me as amazing, in that so much news can happen in a short period of time.

Though the Sandy Hook shooting is not memorialized in the pages of Time’s year in review, I would hope that it is not forgotten event.

But we don’t know if this event will ingrain itself in our minds more than other news — ingrained enough to cause us to take action.

In the couple of weeks following the shooting, news organizations released tidal waves of information about the tragedy. Touching stories from across the country about people sending gifts to the Sandy Hook victims’ families. Fierce debate about gun control in the country. Less, but no less significant, debate about our culture of violence and the mental effect it has on children.

About a month later, talk of the shooting has exponentially decreased. This is to be expected. But time is a funny thing. As time passes, the impact of big events, horrific events, can appear to decrease. And when that happens, steps are not taken to change things.

How horrifying of an event has to happen to spur real change?

Looking through the Time magazine, I made mental notes of which events of the year stood out for me.

Of those I chose: Former assistant coach of the Penn State football team, Jerry Sandusky, was found guilty of 45 of 48 sexual abuse charges on June 22.

Taliban shooting Pakistani Malala Yousafzai in the head on Oct. 9 because of her outspokenness on female education.

The violence that erupted in the wake of the “Innocence of Muslims” video, which depicted the Prophet Muhammad in a degrading manner and led to the killing four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, by protesters on the 11th anniversary of Sept. 11 attacks.

Of those that had faded out of my memory: 32 passengers died when the ship Costa Concordia sunk off the northwest coast of Italy on Jan. 13, and the captain abandoned ship before all the passengers had left it.

The arrest of three women of the political activist group and band Pussy Riot in Moscow after they performed a “punk prayer” in a church, criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Feb. 21.

Many of the elements of newsworthiness would explain what we remember and what we don’t. There’s proximity, where we may remember more clearly events that occur closer to us. There’s conflict, where confrontations and tension draw human attention. There’s also a certain amount of oddity, or shock value, that grabs hold of the minds of the public.

Things we do not expect, things that we would not dream of, retain a spot in our minds.

For so many members of the coaching staff at Penn State to ignore Sandusky’s abuses is a travesty.

For the Taliban to choose a 14-year-old as its target is inhumane and unbelievable.

For protestors to take their rage out on Americans in the U.S. consulate in Libya is alarming and concerning.

But while these events may stick out more than others, it is important to pay attention to those lesser-remembered events.

The sinking of the Costa Concordia hopefully taught captains to stay on course and not cut too close to land, which caused the ship’s demise. It also hopefully readjusted the moral compasses in ship captains, making them care about the safety of their passengers more than their own.

The protest by Pussy Riot shows the dissatisfaction with Vladimir Putin and makes us think about freedom of speech around the world.

Time’s year in review alerted me of the importance of paying attention to all types of news because each event affects someone. We have to see past the sensational, flip past the front page and read the stories inside the paper to understand what is going on in the world. While some events are covered more, there is a need to remember and learn from others as well.

Kirsten is a sophomore in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].