'Accused' climbs iTunes charts

Just three weeks ago, my podcast "Accused: The Unsolved Murder of Elizabeth Andes" debuted. On Thursday, the finale for the eight-episode endeavor went live.

It's been a hell of a month. My producer Amanda Rossmann and I have worked an insane number of hours, not only on the transcripts and promotion and teaser videos, but also on components of a special section to be released Sunday, Oct. 2. Amanda right now is sitting across from me working on a video for the project, trying to figure out how to condense dozens of hours of footage down to about 10 minutes for a newspaper audience.

Today has been especially gratifying because "Accused" climbed to No. 2 on the iTunes' podcast chart nationwide. That's across all categories. 

I remember one colleague about six months ago quipping about how much time we were spending on a podcast that would likely have just 50 listens. Well, today we're cruising past the 500,000 mark on Soundcloud.

To read more about today's milestone, click here.

I don't write this to crow. In fact, I probably write this more out of sheer exhaustion than anything else. But I'm also writing from a place of gratitude: Thank you to my bosses at The Enquirer for believing in this and giving us the time to do it properly. Thank you to the Andes family for entrusting us to tell Beth's story. Thank you to Bob Young for never once asking us to omit anything or otherwise try to sway our coverage -- even knowing that we could very well have come to the same conclusion that prosecutors did all those years ago. Finally, big thanks to Debbie Lydon for recognizing that involving a newspaper might help further the case. Without that initial contact, we never would have done this.

I'll quit with the sappiness now. Every now and then, it's important to acknowledge how grateful you are. This is one of those moments for me.

To learn more about "Accused," please go to Cincinnati.com/AccusedPodcast.

---