We're a civic signal for all moments: daily local updates in calm times, and rapid, verified dispatch in critical times — keeping communities connected and resilient. Since its inception in the days preceding Hurricane Irene in August 2011, JSHN has evolved into covering news, traffic, weather, and community oriented information throughout New Jersey. We've covered every major crisis in painstakin
g detail since 2011, including COVID since early February 2020. It's a free service to you. Our service has received awards from CNN, the United Way, the American Red Cross, the Philadelphia Pen and Pencil Club, and has been honored by the White House as a “Champion of Change.”
JSHN was created from an vision years in the making to develop an online journalism community on an existing social media platform to connect people, share information, and help others — more on that below. (That love of investigating and informing was created out of a boyhood obsession of chasing fire trucks when the firehouse siren blared in Seaside Park.) Also add in a lifelong interest in weather and hurricanes (https://auciello.tumblr.com/post/164530736/this-is-an-ongoing-journal-of-tropical-activity) and….. Hurricane Irene was the spark — hence the name — and we haven’t stopped in a decade. Even in the face of daily comments of “what does this have to do with hurricanes,” the name will never change. This is the original rough framework of what was to become JSHN in a blog post from March 2009 on the changing media landscape:
“This is why everyone now has a responsibility to serve as a citizen journalist, and social media is serving as a catalyst for this need. It is remarkable how individuals have so much power, by using social networking sites, writing blogs, etc, as a result of the nearly instantaneous reporting that is done on such a micro level. We all know that the newspaper industry will have to change radically if it is to survive. Inevitably, innovative news collection and reporting methods will appear. Recognizing this, the New York Times, as just one example, debuted a neighborhood blog service in early March 2009 to cover metro news, which relies partially on citizen journalists. We, the unpaid journalists, now carry a tremendous responsibility to report the news in our communities. In examining all sides of the issue, one has to accept this fate and work to ensure reporting thrives in this new reality.”
https://auciello.tumblr.com/post/91320812/old-media-is-dying-so-what-is-to-be-done
Also follow us on Instagram (.hn) and Twitter (). Read about JSHN:
https://www.niemanlab.org/2013/10/journalists-of-the-jersey-shore-how-a-novice-reporter-built-a-news-network-from-scratch/
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2013/1017/Justin-Auciello-turns-Facebook-into-journalism-with-Jersey-Shore-Hurricane-News
https://localnewslab.wpengine.com/2017/03/09/jersey-shore-hurricane-news-experiments-in-listening-to-get-to-deeper-community-issues/
https://medium.com/1st-draft/how-a-one-person-newsroom-built-a-200-000-person-verification-network-7cde633d2853
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/20170227_Satullo__In_South_Jersey__grassroots_journalist_finds_his_niche.html
https://www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2017/for-local-newsrooms-covering-hurricanes-harvey-and-irma-the-story-is-just-beginning/
https://www.technewsworld.com/story/when-the-lights-go-out-social-nets-can-be-more-than-friends-76815.html
https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/articles/7-ways-to-get-your-covid-19-reporting-to-those-who-need-it/
Princeton TV appearance: https://vimeo.com/105046577
Reporting on WNYC:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/joaquin-and-noreaster/
https://www.wnyc.org/story/new-jersey-budget-stalemate-brings-state-closer-shutdown
We produced thousands of news reports (including investigative environmental pieces) for WHYY, Philadephia's NPR/PBS station, between 2013 and 2020: https://whyy.org/programs/down-the-shore/
“Citizen Watchdog,” a short profile on JSHN: https://vimeo.com/83795643
Portraits of the Jersey Shore appearance: https://www.facebook.com/portraitsofthejerseyshore/videos/4131199723568106/
JSHN in a college textbook:
Mobile and Social Media Journalism: A Practical Guide
https://books.google.com/books?id=OiHMDQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Anthony+Adornato%22&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y =onepage&q&f=false
JSHN examined in a doctorate dissertation:
Building online communities after crises: Two case studies
https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/15687/Janoske_umd_0117E_15342.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
