Press Awards 2011: Cast your vote for newspaper of the year (just for fun)

The seating plan for the British Press Awards was always carefully considered to avoid possible punch-ups – and the same will no doubt be true for The Press Awards at the Savoy on 5 April.

Not least because arch enemies The Guardian and News of the World are up against each other in a number categories – the most hotly fought-over of which will be newspaper of the year.

This is a great award to win because it usually ends up on the masthead for a whole year serving to pat your loyal readers on the back for having such great taste as well as perhaps winning over a few new ones.

The Guardian has without doubt had a memorable year – with its Wikileaks and News of the World phone-hacking coverage providing the highlights.

The News of the World has also had some historic scoops – including the Pakistan match-fixing exclusive and the sensational undercover tapes revealing that Sarah Ferguson was willing to sell access to Prince Andrew for cash.

The Daily Mail has to be a leading contender for newspaper of the year because of its surging website growth (miles more than anyone else at 50m+ unique browsers a month) and its singular print circulation success – up 0.8 per cent year on year to 2,136,568 in January.

The Sunday Times has had another strong year, reflected by its 13 award nominations – including a scoop of the year nod for “World Cup: Cash for votes”.

And the Mail on Sunday had 12 nominations – the judges described it as “consistently brave…with an absolute commitment to holding those in authority to account”.

Vote for your favourite below and we’ll find out on the night how our votes compare with the decision of the judges.

The top five contenders for this prize were arrived at following a round of voting from the 120-strong Press Awards ‘academy’ of senior journalists. The one with the most votes is already known by the organisers, so this vote can’t affect the ultimate outcome.

If your number one national newspaper for 2010 is not listed in the top five, tick the ‘other’ box and why not write in your suggested winner in the comments box below?

Quizzes by Quibblo.com