Justin Auciello
Back in 2009, I argued that the collapse of local journalism was not just a business crisis, but a breakdown of civic infrastructure, and that communities themselves would need to help hold the information system together. That idea shaped the work I’ve been doing ever since.I design and operate civic signal systems: real-time, two-way public information networks that turn what communities are seeing, hearing, and experiencing into verified, actionable intelligence.For more than 15 years, I’ve built and run these systems in environments where clarity, trust, and timing matter. In 2011, I founded Jersey Shore Hurricane News, a community-powered information network that now reaches more than 260,000 people across New Jersey. During Superstorm Sandy, when formal channels were strained, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management used verified public reports from the network for real-time situational awareness and storm-surge rescue coordination. Since then, the system has helped communities navigate hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, the pandemic, long recoveries, and everyday civic life.That work led to seven years of reporting with WHYY and recognition as a White House Champion of Change. After Hurricane Maria, I extended the same approach into humanitarian response in Puerto Rico, where I designed and field-led Información como Ayuda, a civic signal system built under collapse conditions that ultimately reached more than one million people. I later brought this work internationally as a global information ecosystems advisor with Internews across disaster-affected and fragile contexts on five continents.Alongside this, I maintain an active professional planning practice as a licensed New Jersey planner. That work reinforces how I think about information: not as content, but as infrastructure that has to perform under real conditions.Today, I’m focused on formalizing this into a replicable model for newsrooms, civic institutions, and other public-serving organizations.