Julie Cohn on The Redefector

From Origin Stories by Campside Media

April 9, 2026 · 33 min · Episode 36

About this episode

Julie Cohn discusses her investigative podcast The Redefector and the challenges of reporting on espionage.

Julie Cohn is a journalist, screenwriter, and Tony Award–winning theater producer whose work spans film, stage, and audio. Her reporting has appeared in outlets like The New York Times and The Daily, and on Broadway she and her sister Marion co-founded The Cohn Sisters , a Tony-winning production company behind shows including Stereophonic, Suffs, Cabaret, John Proctor Is the Villain, and Just For Us. Her latest project is The Redefector , a ten-part investigative podcast about the strange Cold War case of KGB officer Vitaly Yurchenko, who defected to the United States in 1985 before unexpectedly returning to the Soviet Union. In this episode, she talks with Matthew about how she first stumbled onto the story while researching another spy project, the unusual challenges of reporting inside the secretive world of intelligence, and why trust becomes the central currency when you're trying to report on spies. “If your source trusts you, they’ll recommend you to another source who trusts you. It’s like a very slow-motion domino. Your flashlight gets a little bit wider every time you meet someone new in the story.” To connect with the team and gain access to behind the scenes content…

People in this episode

Host: Matthew

Guest: Julie Cohn

Topics covered

journalism
Cold War
intelligence
defection
podcast production

Keywords

Julie Cohn
The Redefector
KGB
defection
intelligence reporting
podcast
Cold War

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The New York Times, The Daily, The Cohn Sisters

Books & works: Stereophonic, Suffs, Cabaret, John Proctor Is the Villain, Just For Us, The Redefector