PolitiFact 2012 Truth Index Outbreak Confirmed

Following the election, it was apparent from Facebook posts that PolitiFact had gone into "clean up" mode and had taken a hiatus from fact-checking.  They needed the rest after kicking it up to about 238 rulings in October, about 40 percent more than their usual output.  It updated its Obamameter of promises, and  only two, yes, one plus one, rulings were published between the election and the new year.

 

Because of those two rulings and the PolitiFact states continuing to churn out  rulings at a lower pace, PolitiFact's 1,961 rulings for 2012 exceeded their production for all other years (2011 was 1,919, second place).  If it continued at same rate as in the first ten months of 2012, there would have been over 2,100 rulings for 2012.  Through the end of 2012, since PolitiFact began in 2007, it has done a total of 6,658 rulings.
 



PolitiFact's Truth Index App has
rather limited info.

As usual, Republicans comprised 55 percent of the rulings in 2012; the Democrats only 37.5 percent.  The congressional majority and the predominance of Republican legislatures and governors in PolitiFact states Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey, Texas and Wisconsin contributed to the Republican numbers.  PolitiFacts New Hampshire, Oregon and Rhode Island, while having more Democrats in power, do not contribute as many rulings overall as the other seven.   Those three states combined contributed 299 rulings for 2012, compared to 1,170 for the other seven heavily Republican states.

 

Recently PolitiFact noted in an article that since the election, the Truth Index had an "outbreak" up the "truthiness scale" in its week-to-week graphic that I'm assuming is available on its android application (I don't have a smart phone because in my circumstances I really don't need one).  Using PolitiFact's Truth Index methodology, the increase in "truthiness" is pretty striking as shown here, smoothed out month to month for the entire year of 2012.  The only other difference to PolitiFact is, it's being shown for Democrats (blue line) versus Republicans (red line), with the grand average as the dotted purple line (which includes those with another or no political affililiation).   The number of rulings published  is shown in parentheses next to the month.

Click to enlarge:  The Truth Index went into a narrow range between parties in the 3
months prior to the election.  Note this is not Truth Index+, but PF's methodology.

The chart has what one might call a "bowl" pattern bottoming out in July; after bounding back in August, the Democrats and Republican resumed a rather closely corresponding line with both pivoting up sharply following the election.  So, yes, this confirms PolitiFact's breakout.
 

The question about this chart that most may wonder about:  what caused the Republicans to "bomb" in July?  The percent of False and Pants on Fires of the total rulings for that month was the highest for the year, at 38.4 percent.  A quick check on Pants on Fire revealed the most likely answer.  July was the "month" of the ruling that received the most votes from PolitiFact readers as the 2012 Lie of the Year, although it was not selected for that "prize" by its editors.  It was the statement about Obamacare being the biggest tax increase in history.  It was repeated that month four times, along with another Obamacare myth about a 3.8 percent real estate transaction tax (ruled on twice).

Finally, what happened to PolitiFact Tennessee (as of January 29, 2013)? They haven't done a ruling since late November, and they are not on the state drop-down at the PolitiFact website.  Searches don't seem to be turning anything up with any sort of "announcement."  Well I hope PolitiFact Tennessee doesn't just waltz away.