Amazon Prime members to get access to Washington Post free for 6 months

Jeff Bezos is finally bringing the Washington Post, which he purchased two years ago, into the Amazon.com fold.

The Seattle e-commerce company announced Wednesday that Amazon Prime members can get access to six months of free, unlimited access to the Post’s national digital edition, a subscription offering usually sold for $9.99 a month.

After the first six months, Prime members can continue to receive access with a discounted monthly subscription rate of $3.99.

Amazon Prime is an annual membership program for $99 a year. Prime customers get free two-day shipping; unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes; free unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive; access to more than 800,000 books to borrow in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library; and other perks.

“Offering free access to new subscribers through Prime allows us to connect with millions of members nationwide who may not have tried the Post in the past,” said Steve Hills, president and general manager of the Post.

Finding novel ways to bridge technology and the news has become an area of interest for several tech companies. Apple News, an app that brings together news from a variety of sources, launched Wednesday. Snapchat and Facebook, too, are partnering with media organizations to offer news stories directly through their platforms.

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