PolitiFact published 1,919 Truth-o-Meter rulings in 2011. It would have been 1,920 if not for a duplicate. As with the previous ALL rulings through the end of 2011, here is the year 2011 in its "cool" and 3-D PolitiFact app format, in a way PolitiFact won't show it: of the 1,919 statements, 1,080 (56.3%--compared to 52.6% overall) were by Republicans/ Conservatives/Tea Party/Libertarians; 677 (35.3%--compared to 39.6% overall) were by Democrats/Liberals, and 162 (8.4%) were by independents, non-partisan or unknown political affiliation. These statements include all those made by individual politicians, as well as pundits, advocates, media, groups, websites, PACs, blogs and chain e-mails.
The Truth Index is shown in parentheses: the Democrats ended at almost exactly zero with .07, or Half True, while the Republicans were (still) at a negative 23.
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| Click to enlarge: Both parties' Truth Index stayed pretty steady while "unaffiliateds" improved a bit. |
It seemed to me that a lot more rulings were being done on Republicans toward the end of the year, with the debates and the upcoming primaries/caucuses. This was indeed especially the case in December. In fact, it almost looked like the word went down to the PolitiFact writers to keep the number of Democrat statements selected (selection bias? lol) to between 55 and 60 a month, and the Republicans to 80 or more, because for the most part that's how many would be done. In December, however, a huge divergence occurred as can be seen in this month to month chart of the percentage of Democratic statements checked as compared to the percentage of Republican statements checked: in numbers, there were 33 Democrat statements fact-checked as compared to 91 fact-checks for the Republicans in December, an almost 3 to 1 ratio.
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| Click to enlarge: Republicans consistently had more claims fact-checked in 2011 with a big bounce up in December. |
Here is how the Truth Index fared month to month in 2011: this graphs the Truth Index calculated for all claims in each month by party. Interestingly, while more Republican claims were being fact-checked, both the Democrats and Republicans enjoyed a late-year upswing in their "truthiness." I've also highlighted where the index lines almost met, in February and June, in what appeared to be the Democrats obviously getting more Mostly False/False/Pants on Fire rulings. Nevertheless, the Democrats appear to consistently have higher ongoing Truth Indexes than the Republicans.
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| Click to enlarge: One of these days, the lines might cross! |
Next up, a look at the "who" (Truth Indexes between office holders, non-office holders, media, etc.). In the fourth quarter I started a "PAC" designation, so please be patient while I go back to properly record the PACs for the first nine months. In the meantime...
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