The PolitiFact Truth Index appears to be slowly and steadily eroding since the beginning of 2011 on a monthly basis, as is shown on the following graph.
However, each month's Truth Index is not an accumulative figure...it is comprised of the rulings for that month. The dotted line average above is all the rulings, while the blue line represents the Democrats and the red line the Republicans. Notice that while the red and blue lines come close, they never cross; it seems the Democrat "truthiness" is consistently higher than the Republicans.
The Democrat Truth Index dip in February was clearly attributable to the labor unrest that was going on in Wisconsin, as PolitiFact took issue with some statements being made by prominent Democrats and pundits at the time. The reason for the dip in June, however, is not clear. I found that there were twice as many statements by Democrats that were found to be "Pants on Fire" in June than the average, but there was not any other particularly good explanation for why it dived. The dip that the Republican average experienced in September is attributable to the fact-checking scrutiny being given to the Republican presidential debates.
It should be noted that Republican fact-checks represent the largest portion of PolitiFact's fact-checks; they made up about 55% of the rulings so far this year, while the Democrats along with other parties and those of unknown affiliation are in the other 45%. In September, the number of Republican rulings increased to about 58% as the debates started to gain traction.
Next up, a look at the state PolitiFacts.
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