Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan’s Story Syndicate Expands Documentary Team (EXCLUSIVE)

Liz Garbus and Dan Cogan’s Story
Michael Buckner for Variety

Story Syndicate, the production house founded by Oscar and Emmy-winning documentary powerhouse couple Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus, is bulking up its development and production team with a new hire, a promotion and a first-look deal with producer and investigative journalist Amy Herdy.

The New York-based production company, which launched in 2019, was behind several popular docs and docuseries in 2021, including Garbus’ “Becoming Cousteau” (National Geographic), Orlando von Einsiedel’s “Convergence: Courage in a Crisis” (Netflix) and John Hoffman and Janet Tobias’ “Fauci” (Nat Geo).

Jon Bardin, most recently Story Syndicate’s head of creative, has been named head of documentary and nonfiction. Bardin, who has been at the production company since its inception, has served as a producer or executive producer on Story Syndicate documentaries including Jesse Moss’ “Mayor Pete,” Erin Lee Carr’s “Britney Vs. Spears,” “Fauci” and Ry Russo-Young’s docuseries “Nuclear Family.” Currently Bardin is working on Theo Love’s upcoming Netflix docuseries about GameStop.

In his new role, Bardin will oversee the creative aspects of all documentary and nonfiction projects from development through delivery. He will report to Cogan, Story Syndicate’s president and CEO.

“Jon is a brilliant and extremely creative executive who has been central to our success and growth since our inception,” Garbus and Cogan said in a joint statement. “We are excited to elevate him to a significant leadership role within the company.”

In addition, Story Syndicate, which develops fiction titles in addition to nonfiction work, has hired film editor Erin Barnett as an in-house producer and story editor. Barnett most recently worked on Garbus’s “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” docuseries for HBO, Pedro Kos’ Discovery Plus doc “Rebel Hearts,” and Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer’s Netflix docu, “The Great Hack.” Barnett will report to Bardin and joins fellow in-house producers Kate Barry, Nell Constantinople and Jack Youngelson.

Herdy, known for her work on HBO’s “Allen v Farrow,” Radius’ “The Hunting Ground” and HBO Max’s “On the Record,” will give Story Syndicate first crack at her upcoming projects and will also work on investigative projects developed in-house.

“Erin has long been one of the most sought-after documentary editors in the business, and we are thrilled to bring her in-house as a key story leader to work with multiple Story Syndicate creative teams,” said Garbus and Cogan. “Amy is the single most impactful investigator in documentary film today. We are so excited to dig deep into major new game-changing investigations with her.”

From Variety US

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