Founded in 1939, when Tel Aviv was part of Mandatory Palestine, Yedioth Ahronoth is Israel's largest paid newspaper by sales and circulation and has been described as "undoubtedly the country's number-one paper.

Carelbach is considered the most prominent journalist of his era and his and his associates' departure from Yedioth is commonly known in Israeli media history as "The Putsch", or the coup.

This success was in large part thanks to the efforts of Dov Yudkovski, a distant cousin of Mozes and Holocaust survivor who joined Yedioth following "the Putsch" in 1948, serving as editorial manager between 1953 and 1986, and chief editor between 1986 and 1989.

The changes in Yediot Ahronot paid off, and Hadashot was forced to close after nine years of activity, after heavy losses for the Schocken family.

[citation needed] The newspaper is owned by the Yedioth Ahronoth Group,[12] which also owns shares in several Israeli mass media companies, such as "Channel 2", a commercial television channel; "Hot", the national cable TV company; "Yedioth Tikshoret", a group of weekly local newspapers; Vesti, a Russian language newspaper; magazines, such as the weekly TV guide magazine Pnai Plus and weekly women's magazine La'Isha; and other non-media companies.

"[15] In 2003, the co-founder of Aswat, an organization supporting lesbian Palestinian women, was outed by the Yedioth Ahronoth after agreeing to an interview, despite asking for her sexual orientation not be included in the article, which led to significant personal backlash.

[16] Haaretz wrote in 2021 that Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes "held three series of meetings in which they discussed advancing their interests: Netanyahu sought favorable coverage in the publications of the Yedioth Ahronoth group, while Mozes sought to restrict a competing newspaper – Yisrael Hayom, a free daily owned by the Jewish-American businessman and political donor Sheldon Adelson".

[19] A study conducted by Moran Rada with the Israeli Democracy Institute showed that Yedioth's coverage of the 2009 Israeli legislative election was biased in favor of Kadima and its leader Tzipi Livni in most editorial decisions, and that the paper chooses to play down events that do not help to promote a positive image for her, while on the other hand, touting and inflating events that help promote Livni and her party.

[20] Oren Frisco reached a similar conclusion after the 2009 Knesset elections, writing that throughout the campaign, Yediot Ahronoth was biased against Netanyahu.