December 15, 2014

#IllRideWithYou Tweeters Lend Support to Muslims as Sydney Siege Comes to an End

A hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a cafe under siege at Martin Place in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. Rob Griffith/AP

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Tweeters offering to escort Australian Muslims who fear racially or religiously motivated attacks in response to a hostage situation in Sydney have adopted the hashtag #illridewithyou, which has quickly spread across social media. This support for Australian Muslims comes after a black flag with Arabic writing on it was seen displayed on the cafe window where the siege continues to unfold.

The Guardian reports that Tessa Kum started the hashtag after she saw this story on Twitter:

The idea quickly caught on, and Sydney residents have been using #illridewithyou to publicly reach out to anyone who may want a partner to travel with as authorities work to put an end to the standoff:

As of 9:05 AM EST, five hostages have either escaped or been released. Muslim leaders, who condemned the “criminal act,” are urging residents stay calm.

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We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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