The Home Front, shot by Marcus Yam and produced by Nancy Donaldson, Catrin Einhorn and Meaghan Looram, follows two young American boys and their struggle to adjust when their father, a single dad and US soldier, returns from Afghanistan for a short break. Including still and moving footage and a voice over narrative, it was described as embodying "many of the simplest and most powerful elements of story telling" by the jury - "great subjects that are articulate and emotional, a narrative arc with a transformation (actually two in this story), a bigger issue of both political and social significance embodied in the micro story, strong video and photography and a compelling visual and audio narrative that worked powerfully in concert with each other".

Blanco, by Stefano De Luigi and VII Photo Agency came second and A Man in the Forest, a production by Lei Wang came third in this category, which celebrated the best in narrative multimedia storytelling.

The second category was devoted to "interactive multimedia" site, and was scooped by Prison Valley, by photographer Philippe Brault and author and co-director David Dufresne, produced by Alexandre Brachet and Gregory Trowbridge for Arte. A site which allows the user to explore the prison industry in Canon City, Colorado, it was described as "a magnum opus visually, conceptually and in terms of the reporting and information offered" by the jury. "It is also an example of immersive interactivity, where the viewer can take a journey that they control, learning new information along the way. This work shoudl be a challenge to everyone producing non-linear multimedia to raise their standards in terms of how the technology can be utilised."

Powering a Nation, including photography by Mike Ehrlich, Jessey Dearing, Lauren Frohne and Elena Rue and produced by Laura Ruel, Chad Stevens and Don Wittekind from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, won second place in this category; third place was scooped by A Year at War, with photography by Damon Winter and Marcus Yam and production by James Dao, Gabriel Dance, Nancy Donaldson, Catrin Einhorn, Rob Harris, and Meaghan Looram for The New York Times.

World Press Photo was set up in 1955 to celebrate the best in press photography but launched a parallel multimedia contest this year in recognition of the changing face of documentary story-telling. The contest was judged by Claudine Boeglin, multimedia content director for Thomson Reuters Foundation in France; Andrew DeVigal, multimedia editor of The New York Times; Kang Kyung-ran, anchor and CEO of the Frontline News Service, South Korea; Gideon Mendel, photographer; and Alan Stoga, president of the US comapny Zemi Communications. American photojournalist, film maker and educator Ed Kashi, chaired the panel.

BJP exclusively sat in on some of the judging in Amsterdam on 18 March, click here for a story on the judges' reactions.