Congratulations to the Sydney Morning Herald, topping the field at last week’s PANPA Awards to be named the country’s leading newspaper. What does it take to be Australia’s newspaper of the year?

Circulation: January to March 2008 compared to January to March 2009, Sydney Morning Herald Monday to Friday improved by 0.1%. Saturday sales went up by a whopping 0.3%.

And revenue? According to the most recent Fairfax reporting, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald second half revenues fell by 25% in the six months to December, and operating profit plunged from $88 million in the June half of 2008, to $26.9 million for the June half of this year.

Put it another way, the two publishing groups went from earning about $3.3 million a week in the June half of last year, to just $1 million a week in the six months to last June: that’s a catastrophic fall of more than 66%. Well done everybody.