Deadly Dentistry: How Safe is Your State?

Feb. 17 (4 p.m. ET)

This webcast features the team responsible for the recent seven-part Deadly Dentistry series featured in The Dallas Morning News. Reporter Brooks Egerton will talk about the deaths he investigated and the national pattern he described “in which state dental enforcers ignore many malpractice cases and leave the public in the dark.”

Collaborator and data journalist Daniel Lathrop will talk about state-by-state findings that were part of the series.

“Every state government has an agency that’s supposed to protect people from bad dentists. But these agencies often leave the public in the dark,” the team concluded. “Most flunked our test of how well they uncover, track and disclose safety information.”

• Brooks Egerton, independent journalist

• Daniel Lathrop, independent journalist

• Moderator: Mary Otto, AHCJ core topic leader on oral health

About the speakers

Brooks Egerton (@brooksegerton) worked for nearly 24 years at The Dallas Morning News, first as an editor and, beginning in the late 1990s, as an investigative reporter. His primary focus in recent years was on patient safety. Before “Deadly Dentistry,” he contributed to a multiyear project that led to a virtual federal takeover of Dallas’ public hospital. Honors include a 2006 National Headliner Award for “Unequal Justice,” a case study of extreme disparity in Texas criminal sentences. The story led Texas Gov. Rick Perry to free a prisoner from a life sentence. It also inspired the data-driven project “Unequal Justice: Murderers on Probation,” in which Egerton and co-worker Reese Dunklin exposed a previously hidden paradox of Texas justice — the state most identified with the death penalty also let many killers avoid prison altogether. Egerton has also written extensively on clergy sexual abuse.

Daniel Lathrop (@lathropd) is a journalism professor at the University of Iowa and a freelance journalist with a focus on datajournalism, working at the intersection of data visualization, data analysis and investigative reporting. He is a contributor to news organizations including the Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism (IowaWatch), and serves as journalism adviser for University of Iowa students in Media Informatics. Prior to joining the University of Iowa faculty in 2015, Lathrop worked for 15 years as a reporter and data editor at print and news organizations. Most recently he was projects data editor at The Dallas Morning News. He was a co-founder of InvestigateWest, an award winning nonprofit investigative news studio, and participated in the formation of the Investigative News Network (now Institute for Nonprofit News).