Pajhwok began as a one-off assignment. Danish Karokhel set up a small project in 2003 to report on Afghanistan's Constitutional Loya Jirga, and it launched as a full news agency in March 2004 under the motto "Reflecting the Truth." It grew into the country's largest independent news agency, owned and operated entirely by Afghans, with headquarters in Kabul, eight regional bureaus and correspondents across all 34 provinces, producing around three dozen stories a day in Pashto, Dari and English. It also supplies photographs, video and audio to international wire agencies and broadcasters. Karokhel remains director and won the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award in 2008, given to journalists who defend press freedom in the face of attacks, threats or imprisonment. Since the 2021 change of government the agency has added an international headquarters outside the country. Today, Pajhwok Afghan News is mainly focused on Afghan governance and security, health and education, trade, agriculture and reconstruction, migration, women's affairs, and investigative and data journalism from the provinces, published in three languages, from their base in Kabul, Afghanistan. One interesting fact: Its about page tells readers plainly that it sometimes cannot report all sides of a story, or must delay publishing details, because of threats to its staff. Few news organisations publish the limits of what they are able to say.