Gretjen Clausing, popular longtime media arts programmer and founding executive director of PhillyCAM, has died at 62

Gretjen Clausing was “a longtime godmother of independent filmmaking in the city,” Inquirer movie critic Carrie Rickey said in 1999. She was “a pillar of the Philadelphia film community,” colleagues at the Philadelphia Film Society said on Wednesday.

Friends at Impacto Media called her “a tireless champion of art, culture, film, and community creativity.” Teammates at Philadelphia Community Access Media, where she was founding executive director, praised her “unwavering belief in public access media and her conviction that everyone deserves the opportunity to be heard, represented, and connected through community storytelling.”

For 40 years, beginning in 1986, Gretjen Clausing was a community media activist, TV and radio programmer, production consultant, producer, filmmaker, radio host, mentor, and volunteer. All those years, she told The Inquirer in 2016, she measured her media success not by traditional ratings but how often she alerted her viewers and listeners to “things that aren’t being represented.”

“It’s not about who’s watching,” she said in 2007, “but about community involvement.”

On Saturday, May 23, Gretjen Clausing died suddenly at her family cabin in the Catskill Mountains in New York. The cause of her death has not been determined. She was 62.

“Gretjen dedicated herself to building PhillyCAM into a vital community institution where Philadelphians could learn, create, connect, and share their stories,” colleagues at Philadelphia Community Access Media said in a tribute. In 1999, Ms. Clausing said: “I think public access can do a lot to connect the community and keep people informed.”

Born in Media, reared in Wallingford, and a graduate of Penncrest High School, Ms. Clausing was affable and engaging, family, friends, and colleagues said. She told Philadelphia Magazine in 2019 that she took a personality test and “it said my strength was working with people.”

She helped establish WPEB-FM (88.1) community radio in 2008 with Scribe Video Center and became founding executive director of the PhillyCAM public access cable TV and radio broadcasting center in 2009 after city officials made cable TV access widely available.

By 2015, as Ms. Clausing wrote for Philadelphia Magazine, the PhillyCAM TV station had more than 800 people, including students, seniors, artists and musicians training or producing content for the station and other public access outlets. As executive director, she overcame political roadblocks, fought constantly for more resources, and faced down several steep funding cuts.

“She wasn’t afraid to take risks, ask big questions, or speak her truth,” friend and colleague Denise Brown said in a tribute. PhillyCAM added WPPM-FM (106.5) radio in 2016, and Ms. Clausing hosted a weekly show about filmmaking and film music called Pulling Focus.

Before PhillyCAM, Ms. Clausing was program director at Scribe Video Center, program director for film at the old Prince Music Theater, communications manager at International House, and director of the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association. In the early 2000s, she helped lead the Philadelphia Community Access Coalition during sometimes contentious negotiations with city and cable company officials.

“It was hard,” she told The Inquirer in 2006, “in part because there wasn’t a great public outcry for public access, and we were trying to convince people of the importance of something they’d never seen.”

At the Prince in the early 2000s, Ms. Clausing organized popular sing-along film screenings and youth film festivals. “We want to help kids explore the art form,” she said in 2002. “But it’s also a great way to get them thinking about ideas.”

Regarding a Wizard of Oz sing-along in 2003, she said: “The lights are low so people let go of their inhibitions. There’s something glorious about being in the theater, belting out songs. It’s great for kids to see. It encourages silliness.”

Ms. Clausing developed and promoted the Neighborhood Film/Video Project and the annual Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema for International House, and organized “cine cafes” where film devotees discussed favorite performances over coffee and cake.

Behind the camera, she created and co-created short videos and films such as Philly Cheese Fakes, Books Without Borders, and the award-winning Ending an Epidemic. In 2022, she produced Divided Attention.

She also produced the quirky do-it-yourself local cable TV show Big Tea Party and said in 2002. “For me, Big Tea Party is about showing people there’s a way to have a creative life and not spend a lot of money. I don’t see any other shows doing that.”

Ms. Clausing was a regular panelist at journalism seminars, and she discussed film, TV, radio, and other multimedia issues at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, the Ambler Theater, the Free Library of Philadelphia, and elsewhere. She earned several media achievement awards and was quoted often in The Inquirer and Daily News.

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She was on boards at the Alliance for Community Media, the Localeyz Cooperative, the Leeway Foundation, and other groups. In tributes, colleagues called her “a visionary,” “a giant in our industry” and said: “Some people build institutions. Gretjen Clausing built community.”

Gretjen Lee Clausing was born April 19, 1964. She grew up with her parents, Jo Ann and Jan, and lived most recently in Roxborough.

She hosted a radio show in college and earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and media studies at Ithaca College in New York in 1986. She met Philippe Staff while studying abroad in Belgium, and they married in 1987, and lived for two years in Brussels before settling in Philadelphia.

Ms. Clausing enjoyed jazz, photography, knitting, cooking, and gardening. She checked in with her parents by phone every Sunday night at 6 p.m. and liked to joke that she was born in Media and wound up working in media.

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The spelling of her first name is Dutch. She had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

On X, a friend called her “a perennial force for good” and said: “Her joy was infectious.” A friend said on Instagram: “Philadelphia is better because of what she created.”

Her father said: “She was bubbly and always positive. She impacted us, of course, but so many other people, too.”

In addition to her husband and parents, Ms. Clausing is survived by other relatives.

A celebration of her life is to be held later.

Donations in her name may be made to PhillyCAM, 699 Ranstead St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.