SpyCast was one of many first podcasts (interval) again in 2006 when podcasting all started.
Actually, the primary podcasts emerged on-line round 2004, across the similar 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 pattern of RSS-feed type 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 consultants. Over the previous 20 years, the podcast has interviewed excessive profile and notable visitors, together with consultants on Robert Hanssen, El Chapo, in addition to figures from MI6, IDF Intelligence, and even award-winning administrators. A couple of notable episodes embrace 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 Heart.
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 Govt Director of the Worldwide Spy Museum. To this point, 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 guts of the historic museum in Washington, and helps guide interviews with extremely excessive profile visitors within the American intelligence neighborhood. She works with 4 distinct groups throughout 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 yr anniversary of SpyCast. What’s going to the podcast do to have fun this milestone yr?
Flora Warshaw: Our twentieth anniversary can be coinciding with America’s 250th anniversary, so we have now some enjoyable episodes developing that spotlight the most effective of American intelligence. I imply we have now twenty years of episodes for audiences to take heed to, so we will certainly do some posts showcasing a few of our greatest.
carry 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 really drew me to that podcast was the storytelling side. In case you make the previous sound partaking and thrilling and you may craft an actual storyline, then it’s onerous to not love historical past. podcast will do this and hopefully ours achieves the identical impact.
How do you’re taking weekly suggestions on viewership and listenership and modify accordingly?
We all know the topic issues that folks actually gravitate in direction of. Our viewers loves Chinese language and Russian espionage episodes and a number of the extra historic WW2 ones. So we all the time see a rise in listenership with these ones. Clearly we need to present the viewers with what they like but it surely’s good to additionally keep on with our mission of training folks about all completely different varieties of world intelligence.
How do you’re employed with the podcast host to tweak the questions requested to visitors, or different kinds of changes?
We do a really rigorous pre-interview with our visitors that actually assist inform the questions we need to ask, as we all know what the visitor may be very well-versed on. Our host is then unbelievable at crafting questions that create a good looking narrative, and the interview then flows seamlessly from one query to the opposite as a result of we now know the content material so nicely from the pre-interview. As a result of we edit down the episode from an hour to half-hour, we will additionally reduce the questions that weren’t essentially the strongest.
Picture by Liz Mueller, Worldwide Spy Museum
How does your British upbringing assist make this podcast stand out to a US viewers?
It’s attention-grabbing, I can’t say it helps the podcast stand out, but it surely undoubtedly helps lots of our interviews. A variety of our subject material is traditionally primarily based, and focuses on British intelligence characters, and I can communicate to and perceive many of those time intervals as a result of they have been in fact what I used to be taught! So it undoubtedly helps within the modifying course of that I actually perceive the subject material. It’s additionally good for a few of our British visitors 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 net podcast recording subsequent to our American host.
Take heed to SpyCast on Apple Podcasts.
