Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • F A L L / H O L I D A Y 2 0 1 5 42 JERSEY SHORE PEOPLE SHORE CONNECTED, continued from page 40 Jerry Meaney to negatively comment on my posts. Not on my page," he said. A resident of Point Pleasant for forty years, Meaney has always loved the Jersey Shore. He explained, "People from Jersey go to Jersey Shore beaches. They grew up here, have memories here, so they are attached to it. Jersey sometimes is underrated, and those who don't know anything about it have images in their heads of the Turnpike or industry. That's not Jersey. Instead, Jersey is a wonderful place, and when you are at the Shore, you don't want to leave it." Followers of the BBI page know that Meaney's sidekick is Kona, an eight-year-old Jack Chi dog. However, what most people do not realize is that Meaney usually holds her while shooting his images. "That's another skill level all its own," he remarked, "and people have recognized me on the beach simply because they recognize her." Kona was a one-year-old rescue when Meaney and his wife, Carol, adopted her, and she is extremely pro- tective of him. "She's always there, and doesn't like when people approach me, even my wife," he laughed. Hurricane Irene Initiates A New Way Of Reporting Justin Auciello, a helper at heart, always had an interest in technol- ogy and writing. Besides being the editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper, he had no formal training in journalism or communications. Rather, the Jersey Shore born surfer happens to be an urban planner/land consultant and is more comfortable in board shorts and bare feet than a suit and tie. With Hurricane Irene ready to pound the Jersey Shore in August 2011, the lifetime Seaside Park resi- dent knew he had to do something to help get storm-related information out to his neighbors. He decided to create a Facebook page. "I had all of these ideas in my head about how to connect people on Facebook, and I made it happen. I knew it would work," he said. And he was right: with his first post, the Jersey Shore Hurricane News (JSHN) was born. Within hours, the page had over a thousand followers who were able to share information, emergency announcements, and storm updates about the storm. After Irene, the JSHN page kept a strong presence and morphed into a source for Jersey Shore news and weather. The page's popularity grew as people realized they could trust its posts and information. Auciello said, "It's the place to go for news and information, and to get or receive help." A little more than four years later, JSHN now has over 226,000 follow- ers, or as Auciello likes to say, "over 226,000 reporters," and has set the standard for citizen-based journal- ism. "JSHN started out as my way of helping, and it turned into a product that brings people together to inform and help," he said. The page has evolved into covering news, traffic, weather, and community informa- tion in real time. The two-way news outlet encourages contributors to share photographs and information. Common posts and topics over the years have included car accidents, traffic delays, fire/police/first aid activity, lost/found pets, community events, found items, sunset/sunrise/ weather images, and more. "It was never my intention to be a journalist," Auciello explained. "I've always enjoyed writing, but it was never supposed to be my career, and now it is, in a way. There is a purpose, a reason why JSHN was a success. That is the connection to each other, the connection to each and every citizen who reports about something that is going on." The JSHN network now includes Twitter, Instagram, a Newsworks website, and the original Facebook page. Auciello is the administrator of the entire network, which set the bar for community reporting. Since 2011, he has traveled the country speaking at colleges and media conferences about the success of JSHN and how it became a model for citizen journal- ism. He said, "One of the tenants is that you never know what is going to happen." And those words couldn't be truer. Storm Of The Century: Hurricane Sandy Meaney, with the personal journal- style BBI page, and Auciello, with the journalistic and news-oriented JSHN page, have worked together several times by sharing information from each other on their respective From the Barnegat Beach Island page: Meaney's photo of a house on East Avenue at North Street in Bay Head during Superstorm Sandy, October 29, 2012. An ABC-7 news camera crew stands next to the home as the ocean begins to wash over the dunes. The home completely disappeared during the storm.

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