An outbreak of truth

By Bill Adair
Published on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013 at 12:00 p.m.

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The PolitiFact Truth Index, which averages the ratings of our national and state sites, climbed into positive territory after the November election.

A funny thing happened after the 2012 campaign: an outbreak of truth.

We know this thanks to the PolitiFact Truth Index, a feature of our mobile app that calculates a running average of all Truth-O-Meter fact-checks by our national and state sites. The index ranges from -50 (Pants on Fire) to 50 (True). Half True equals zero.

For most of the last year, the weekly index stayed in negative territory, averaging about -20 throughout the campaign.

But the week after the election, it shot into positive territory and stayed there through the holidays. (We saw the same trend after the 2010 election.)

Lately, though, the index has been in negative territory because of a flurry of less than-Half True ratings, particularly on gun control. Although the most recent weekly close was 20, the index has dipped into negative territory the last few days. Yesterday's index was -35.42.

If you want to follow the ups and downs of the Truth Index, download PolitiFact Mobile, which is available for iPhone, iPad and other devices.