PUBLIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS DESIGNER & OPERATOR | URBAN PLANNER | JOURNALIST | HUMANITARIAN
Justin Auciello
Back in 2009, I wrote that the collapse of journalism wasn’t just a business crisis but a breakdown of civic infrastructure, and that ordinary people would need to step in to help hold it up. That systems lens shaped everything that followed.For more than 15 years, communities, journalists, and public agencies have depended on these systems during disasters, long recoveries, and the everyday information needs of civic life.While maintaining an active licensed planning practice with litigation-grade accountability, I built and led Jersey Shore Hurricane News (JSHN), a large-scale civic signal network serving more than 260,000 people across New Jersey.During Superstorm Sandy, when formal channels were overwhelmed, the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management coordinated with JSHN to use verified public reports for real-time situational awareness, helping to inform storm-surge rescues. Since then, the network has supported communities through hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, the pandemic, infrastructure failures, and routine civic life.This work led to seven years of reporting with WHYY, recognition as a White House Champion of Change, and citation by Internews as evidence that information can function as public infrastructure.After Hurricane Maria, I extended this approach into humanitarian operations in Puerto Rico, designing and field-leading Información como Ayuda — a civic signal system built under collapse conditions that reached more than one million residents and operated for three years.I later advised Internews globally on information ecosystem analysis, informing programs in disaster-affected and fragile contexts across multiple regions.I describe this work as Signal Architecture: treating verified, context-aware information as infrastructure that must hold under real-world conditions.Today, I am formalizing these systems — signal intake, verification workflows, uncertainty labeling, and shared situational awareness — so they can be adopted, taught, and operated by newsrooms and civic institutions beyond my own.The next essential utility isn’t just water, power, or broadband. It’s trustworthy information flow.