SpyCast was one of many first podcasts (interval) again in 2006 when podcasting all started.
In truth, the primary podcasts emerged on-line round 2004, across the identical time that the phrase “podcast” was coined by British journalist and BBC broadcaster Ben Hammersley. He created the time period (a mix of two phrases; “iPod” and “broadcast”) in an article in The Guardian to explain the then-emerging development of RSS-feed sort of audio running a blog.
SpyCast was an early podcasting pioneer, and is produced by the Worldwide Spy Museum in Washington, DC, with the podcast that includes interviews with spies, intelligence analysts, and specialists. Over the previous 20 years, the podcast has interviewed excessive profile and notable friends, together with specialists on Robert Hanssen, El Chapo, in addition to figures from MI6, IDF Intelligence, and even award-winning administrators. Just a few notable episodes embody interviews with Robert Gates, former CIA Director, David Cattler, former Director of the Protection Counterintelligence and Safety Company, and Brian Carbaugh, former Director of the Particular Actions Middle.
In 2025, the present was relaunched with host Sasha Ingber to proceed its run as its fifth everlasting host. The primary ever host of SpyCast was Peter Earnest, the primary Government Director of the Worldwide Spy Museum. Up to now, SpyCast has a portfolio of over 700 episodes for folks to take heed to.
Flora Warshaw, the present podcast producer at SpyCast, works to create the podcast out of the center of the historic museum in Washington, and helps e book interviews with extremely excessive profile friends within the American intelligence group. She works with 4 distinct groups inside the Worldwide Spy Museum to create the podcast- videography, social media, the host and podcast editors. At simply 25 years previous, she runs one of the crucial profitable intelligence podcasts within the US. With the upcoming twentieth anniversary of SpyCast, she chats about celebrating the milestone and what’s in retailer subsequent for SpyCast.
2026 marks the 20 12 months anniversary of SpyCast. What is going to the podcast do to rejoice this milestone 12 months?
Flora Warshaw: Our twentieth anniversary can be coinciding with America’s 250th anniversary, so we now have some enjoyable episodes developing that spotlight the very best of American intelligence. I imply we now have twenty years of episodes for audiences to take heed to, so we will certainly do some posts showcasing a few of our greatest.
How you can convey historical past to a wider viewers by means of podcasts?
The primary podcast I first fell in love with was “The Relaxation Is Historical past”. In fact I’m biased as I majored in historical past for 4 years at College, however what truly drew me to that podcast was the storytelling facet. If you happen to make the previous sound participating and thrilling and you may craft an actual storyline, then it’s onerous to not love historical past. A great podcast will do this and hopefully ours achieves the identical impact.
How do you’re taking weekly suggestions on viewership and listenership and regulate accordingly?
We all know the topic issues that individuals actually gravitate in direction of. Our viewers loves Chinese language and Russian espionage episodes and lots of the extra historic WW2 ones. So we all the time see a rise in listenership with these ones. Clearly we wish to present the viewers with what they like however it’s good to additionally keep on with our mission of training folks about all totally different varieties of worldwide intelligence.
How do you’re employed with the podcast host to tweak the questions requested to friends, or different forms of changes?
We do a really rigorous pre-interview with our friends that basically assist inform the questions we wish to ask, as we all know what the visitor could be very well-versed on. Our host is then unbelievable at crafting questions that create a stupendous narrative, and the interview then flows seamlessly from one query to the opposite as a result of we now know the content material so effectively from the pre-interview. As a result of we edit down the episode from an hour to half-hour, we are able to additionally reduce the questions that weren’t essentially the strongest.
Photograph by Liz Mueller, Worldwide Spy Museum
How does your British upbringing assist make this podcast stand out to a US viewers?
It’s fascinating, I can’t say it helps the podcast stand out, however it positively helps a lot of our interviews. Quite a lot of our material is traditionally primarily based, and focuses on British intelligence characters, and I can converse to and perceive many of those time intervals as a result of they had been after all what I used to be taught! So it positively helps within the enhancing course of that I actually perceive the subject material. It’s additionally good for a few of our British friends to listen to a fellow English accent each time they go into the interview, and they’re all the time caught off guard and a bit stunned to listen to my voice on the different finish of the web podcast recording subsequent to our American host.
Hearken to SpyCast on Apple Podcasts.
