Laurie Segal is betting that she can create a new model for true crime investigations that doesn’t have to rely on the structure of a documentary or the conventions of an hour of television broadcast.
The journalist, who rose to prominence as a technology reporter at CNN before leaving to start his own creative career, will launch “Searching for Mr. Deepfakes,” a 13-part quest to find the owners of sites that created sexually explicit images of women without their consent. The series debuted on TikTok and broke many long-standing rules.
“We like this idea of creating a new playbook for unscripted content,” Segal said in a recent interview. “This is like a beta test.”
Segal said the aim is to ensure that her story of exploring the digital realm for clues about the alleged perpetrator reaches those who want to see it, especially young women who are more likely to tackle the issue. “We want this to be seen by the people who need it most,” she says.
Seagull has allies. Paris Hilton, who suffered this type of violation when she wasn’t even 20 yet, is heavily involved in the series, produced by Segal’s Mostly Human in partnership with BFD and Hilton’s 11:11 Media. Hilton, who will appear on the series and interview Segal about the impact of deepfakes, will promote the project through his digital and social channels.
“It was one of the most painful, traumatic, humiliating, humiliating experiences of my life,” Hilton said in an interview with Segal in one of the series’ episodes.
This would be a fascinating hour-long investigation, similar to NBC’s “Dateline,” ABC’s “20/20,” or, more recently, a streaming documentary on HBO or Netflix. However, Segal believes he can communicate with modern audiences through the platforms they employ. Many TikTok episodes of “Looking for Mr. Deepfake” last only two to four minutes.
Segal also has other ways to tell this story. Her podcast, “Mostly Human,” recently launched, and she is set to launch a full-length “In Search of Mr. Deepfake” four-part series. This version of the story debuted on June 4th and will be published on Thursdays for four weeks.
Segal is capitalizing on the creator culture that she noticed early on. After 10 years at CNN, she left to start her own production company, but she has never given up her interest in documenting the remarkable innovations brought about by new technology companies and some of the problems posed by such fast-paced change. At one point, she contributed to the new 60 Minutes concept on the ahead-of-its-time short-form content platform Quibi.
“I saw it around the corner,” she says. “Content doesn’t have to be in one place.”
Mr. Segal’s initiative comes as more news organizations expand into independent partnerships. NBC News recently announced a partnership with technology journalist Joanna Stern, and Fox News Channel has licensed the popular conservative podcast Ruthless to become an opinion contributor.
In the case of “Mr. Deepfakes,” Segal believes the issues he’s investigating are first and foremost important, and he hopes a wide audience will be interested in new stories. Although she has long enjoyed covering the innovations spurred by new technology, “I can see it being a train wreck,” she says, noting that when things move too quickly, old guardrails can slip through and people can get hurt.
