University journalist gains national attention
Student Spotlight: Abdi Aynte

-- Vickie Evans-Nash

Abdirahman Aynte has been fascinated with writing and journalism since he was a child in his home county Somalia. Aynte, a senior, transferred from the University of Minnesota to Metropolitan State University for a more flexible schedule.

Aynte currently works for a small publication, called Minnesota Monitor, an online newspaper operated by a Washington, D.C. think tank, through which he recently gained national attention. Minnesota Monitor hired a group of 11 reporters from the Twin Cities in July, 2006, as part of a six-month internship. Aynte, along with three other internship candidates, was recently hired on a permanent basis.

During his internship Aynte experienced the flexibility to cover the beat he was most familiar with. He received most of his international attention from MSNBC through an interview he had with Rep. Keith Ellison.

"My beat included immigration, a little bit of education and Keith Ellison’s campaign," said Aynte. "That’s what really got me a lot of national focus, because I sort of covered Keith Ellison from a very unique perspective that I feel the mainstream media may have neglected to do."

"I interviewed him about him swearing [in] on the Quran and I was the first person who he had given an interview to. The next day some 72 nationwide newspapers quoted me."

Aynte said he believes stories with depth are often lacking from mainstream media. "Back in October and September, I would go to his [Ellison’s] temple and I would mention the fact that he was fasting. Muslim fast one month each year, and that month is called Ramadan. It happened to [fall] in portions of October and November. Other reporters were not noticing [that when] he was in a debate, he was not drinking the glass of water because he was still fasting; but after the sunset he started to drink water."

From Aynte’s point of view — although mainstream media never blatantly reported it — there seemed to be an implication that Ellison would be a spokesperson for the Muslim community. Aynte asked Ellison to address this issue.

"I pushed him so hard to answer that question, and I got it out of him. He would say, ‘No, people of the fifth congressional district elected me. Most of them are non-Muslim. They [are of] every single faith and I have a great respect for that.’"

Aynte visited the mosque located in the Cedar Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, one of Ellison’s remote centers during the campaign, and was impressed by the diversity of those in attendance. "I’ve been going to the mosque praying myself, and I have not seen a picture like that in a mosque," said Aynte. "So I took a picture that I posted on the Web site and it got a lot of attention — how Keith Ellison was able to pull together this huge diversity that no one was able to do."

It is not his knowledge of political issues that gives Aynte an edge when writing a story. "I came into this country barely six years ago from Africa, and I had no understanding of how the political system of this country works."

Aynte’s approach to reporting garnered him an interview from National Public Radio (NPR) about his work with Ellison.

There were other issues in the Twin Cities that Aynte covered, such as the incident at the airport when Muslim passengers were not allowed to board a plane because of proposed terrorist intentions. Aynte said that it is his instinct that tells him there is more beneath the surface of a story – this story was a good example. He said the mainstream news coverage reported a passenger had voiced a concern about Muslim men who were praying. "This description is all accurate, but it’s the opinion of one passenger. And that opinion led to six people being removed from an aircraft."

After Aynte read the story, he went and interviewed the men accused and asked them if they were chanting Allah. The men told Aynte they weren’t chanting Allah, they were praying, which in Muslim prayer includes repeating Allah several times. Aynte said he has been praying for over 20 years, but the interview caused him to reflect on his prayer.

"That day was a very, very special day for me because I asked myself, ‘How many times do I pray a day?’ Five times. ‘How many times do I say Allah?’ I counted — 85 times a day. I didn’t even know that."

The next day Aynte submitted his story and included that fact that Muslims pray five times a day, and that within those five times, the prayer requires Allah to be spoken 85 times.

In his view, the mainstream media failed to probe the story. However, Aynte isn’t against the mainstream news. In fact, he would like to work for them one day and bring a fresh perspective to major newspapers.

Long term, Aynte would like to travel. "I was born in Somalia, but I grew up in Egypt. I’m very fluent in Arabic, so I want to go to those places and write about what’s going on in the world, and report the suffering of people who may not be well reported in this country," he said.

Aynte is hesitant to call himself a civil rights activist because he doesn’t feel that is his job. "But one thing I like about the stories of like Martin Luther King [Jr.] and so on is that they were started with one person who knew that if you are honest of what you feel that you can indeed make a difference. I don’t hope to make a radical difference, I just hope to start a dialogue—a discussion about important things."