Susan Fleischmann

Susan Fleischmann is a photographer and longtime community media leader whose work has been rooted in Cambridge, Massachusetts since the 1970s. As executive director of Cambridge Community Television, she helped shape CCTV into a lasting urban community media center, connecting public access television with neighborhood storytelling, media education, civic participation, and digital inclusion. Her leadership reflected the belief that community media should not only give people airtime, but help them build the skills and confidence to speak for themselves.

During more than three decades at CCTV, Susan helped carry community access through major changes in technology, funding, and public life while keeping the focus on local voice. In 2011, she received the ACM's Dirk Koning-George Stoney Award for Humanistic Communication, honoring work that strengthened the human purpose of community media. Her contribution belongs to the institutional leadership generation: the people who kept access centers steady, useful, and open while helping communities adapt to a changing media world.