Mission impossible: Covering Pakistan's northwest - The Listening Post (Feature)

For more than a decade, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of northwest Pakistan, known as FATA, have been unstable and dangerous.

Bordering Afghanistan, the mountainous, inhospitable lands are home to Pashtun tribals and at least six recognised militant groups.

Reporting FATA is a perilous assignment for any journalist to accept.

The region has been targeted by American drone strikes ever since 2004. The drone war is one of the toughest stories to get at in the so-called war on terror.

Reporting on the effects of drone strikes on the ground - on the people there - has led to a number of journalists in the northwest getting killed.

FATA, and especially Waziristan on its southern edges, is militarised and locked down. Few reporters even try to go there anymore.

"Coverage is terribly difficult, without a doubt. It's tough to get there as a regular Pakistani. It's even tougher to get there as a journalist. And then when you sort of cross past certain areas from mainland Pakistan, well, it becomes a free-for-all. Your safety is not guaranteed. Most journalists who have been killed in the last decade or so in Pakistan have ended up being killed inside these regions," says Wajahat Khan, an anchor for Dunya News.

The Listening Post's Meenakshi Ravi tells the story of one Pakistani journalist and what he is up against reporting on the state of war in northwestern Pakistan.

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