This was ostensibly for financial reasons. However, the PA had carried out a lengthy campaign of harassment against An-Nahar, resulting in distribution difficulties and withdrawal of major advertisers, leading up to the financial crisis. Despite its weakened condition, the daily press remains the main channel for the distribution of information and opinion. Other publications have fewer readers on the one hand, and the weeklies and monthlies that address political issues tend to be geared towards a more limited audience, one that is more educated than the readership of the daily press. Al-Ayyam is distributed in PA offices.
Various authorities practice censorship and unacceptable intervention in the press.
All of this intervention is in violation of the Press Law, passed in 1995. The authorities control the content of the daily press through existing relationships with the owners, publishers, and chief editors of the papers. This relationship is based on outright ownership of the newspaper by senior PA officials, participation of PA officials in senior positions on the newspaper staff, and in the case of Al-Quds, a close relationship between the chief editor and PSS head Jibril Rajub. Apparently, newspapers obviously and blatantly connected to the PA are seen as 'loyalists' who may be permitted to criticize. Al-Quds on the other hand, as the most veteran and respected newspaper, must be restrained since its relationship with the PA is based more on intimidation than on a close and voluntary relationship with the authorities.