Phillip Martin

Reporter

WGBH News

Since joining WGBH in the spring of 2010, Phillip Martin has reported on human trafficking in southern New England, the Boston Marathon bombing, Whitey Bulger, carbon offset schemes, police shootings, training and race, the Occupy movement and the fishing industry in New England, among other topics. 

On WGBH-TV, he is a regular panelist for Basic Black and an occasional panelist for Beat the Press, and hosted the World Compass 2012 presidential primary coverage. He is a Senior Fellow with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism and a 2012 International Center for Journalists Ford Foundation Fellow.

In addition, Phillip is executive producer for Lifted Veils Productions, a nonprofit public radio journalism project dedicated to exploring issues that divide and unite society. Phillip has worked as a supervising senior editor for NPR and was NPR’s first national race relations correspondent, from 1998 to 2001. In 1995, in his role as a senior producer, he helped create The World.

A young woman is shown wearing a face mask and backpack while holding a laptop.

Discussion: Mental health concerns for students of color heightened amid the coronavirus

Young people of color around the world confront serious challenges and systemic inequalities in higher education that are only exacerbated amid the pandemic. This panel discussion, moderated by GBH News' Phillip Martin, addressed the mental health challenges for young people of color navigating today’s campus climate, social distancing protocols and remote learning experiences.

Discussion: Mental health concerns for students of color heightened amid the coronavirus
A crowd of protesters are shown with a man in the center holding a sign that reads, "Racism is a pandemic too."

Discussion: Mental health concerns for young people of color during COVID-19

Discussion: Mental health concerns for young people of color during COVID-19
street

Dalit Americans make a pilgrimage to Ambedkar Avenue, named for civil rights hero

Dalit Americans make a pilgrimage to Ambedkar Avenue, named for civil rights hero
A woman looks to the side.

Caste discrimination exists on college campuses. Some schools are trying to change that.

Caste discrimination exists on college campuses. Some schools are trying to change that.
Several women in saris and a man laugh

Even with a Harvard pedigree, caste follows ‘like a shadow’

Even with a Harvard pedigree, caste follows ‘like a shadow’
A former sex buyer, now in recovery, revisits Boston's Chinatown where he sometimes frequented erotic massage parlors. He says such establishments are all over the state.

Across the US, many illicit massage parlors avoid police detection

Prosecutors from Massachusetts to Minnesota detail cases where mostly foreign-born women work seven days a week, 12-24 hours a day, sleeping in parlors or nearby flophouses, and are managed by a network of interstate traffickers and business people.

Across the US, many illicit massage parlors avoid police detection
Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who runs the Bristol County Jail

How a few notations by a school resource officer caused a teen to wind up in a high-security detention facility

Henry Lemus Calderón, 19, is incarcerated in a high-security unit, and he can’t figure out why. Though in the country illegally, he was never arrested for any crime and never ordered removed, and he bristles at the notion of being considered in need of high security.

How a few notations by a school resource officer caused a teen to wind up in a high-security detention facility
Handwritten notations on a school resource officer's police report tagged Lemus as a member of the 18th Street gang.

On Nantucket, a teenage migrant gets swept up in a crackdown on Salvadoran gangs

The teen and his advocates insist that he's being swept up and threatened with deportation because of teenage bravado, rather than actual evidence.

On Nantucket, a teenage migrant gets swept up in a crackdown on Salvadoran gangs
Behnam Partopour, a Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) student from Iran, is greeted by his sister Bahar (L) at Logan Airport after he cleared U.S. customs and immigration on an F1 student visa in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. February 3, 2017. Partopour

Why a Boston judge decided to let Trump's immigration order move forward

A Boston court was one of the first to restrict the ability of DHS to implement Donald Trump's executive order on immigration and refugees. On Friday, the order lapsed — but soon after another, more far-reaching order was put in place.

Why a Boston judge decided to let Trump's immigration order move forward
Man standing in front of desk

The reconciliation of Mark Wahlberg

The actor, who stars in a new movie about the Boston Marathon bombings, once made life hell for immigrants and African Americans on Boston’s racially divided streets.

The reconciliation of Mark Wahlberg
Luis Alfredo Velara Mendoza is from Caracas

The man who guards our doors — and his valiant effort to save his brother in Venezuela

A security guard has a very personal connection to the economic and social upheaval underway in Venezuela. Last week, he got some good news.

The man who guards our doors — and his valiant effort to save his brother in Venezuela
trump east boston

In Boston, Latinos push back against Trump supporters in their neighborhood

Pro-Trump signs being put up in one Boston neighborhood have resurrected old feelings from the early 1990s, when large numbers of Central Americans began moving there and encountered racial resistance.

In Boston, Latinos push back against Trump supporters in their neighborhood
Joey G - Brockton

Stopping the school-to-prison pipeline: Here's how one city is doing it

In Brockton, Massachusetts, street workers and schools are working to reverse the trend of Cape Verdean youth dropping out of school.

Stopping the school-to-prison pipeline: Here's how one city is doing it
Main Somali youth 2

Somali youth in one Maine city are learning to navigate several cultures

Maine is home to many Somali refugees in the US, but fitting in hasn’t always been easy. There's even tension among Somali communities — between those who arrived first and those who came later. That also plays out at public schools in Lewiston, Maine’s second largest city.

Somali youth in one Maine city are learning to navigate several cultures
Members of the Nordic Order Knights and the Rebel Brigade Knights, groups that both claim affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, in a cross lighting ceremony on a fellow member's property in Henry County, Virginia, August 9, 2014.

Domestic terrorism: Conservative politicians play down threat from the far right

Extremists from the far right have carried out more than half of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11.

Domestic terrorism: Conservative politicians play down threat from the far right