Behind the Scenes: Ellation Lays Off 17 Employees

Article Title: Crunchyroll Parent Ellation Lays Off 17 Employees 

Author: Samantha Ferreira & Seth Burn

Publication Date: 1/18/2017

Today, we're taking a look at a much shorter piece than usual. The original content was just a few paragraphs, truth be told. Still, this was an important piece, which brought in the combined efforts of Seth and I to bring it to the finish line.

It all began, funny enough, with a few random Reddit posts, and Twitter buzz that followed. Seth tipped me off to a user in r/Crunchyroll, who was posting from a throwaway account. The posts began in a topic simply titled "Apparently there have been layoffs?" 

Digging further, we found that a user was posting from a throwaway account, as they stated plainly that "The entirety of QA and a decent % of the San Francisco engineering team were laid off." They recounted working with temp agencies, and generally downsizing. Reading into Glassdoor reviews, I was able to confirm that there was definitely trouble in paradise. 

As the afternoon unfolded, we began to see several other posts from folks claiming to be former Crunchyroll staffers, all of which posted similar stories.

This honestly sounded like something out of a nightmare scenario, especially considering we were look at a million-subscriber company. There was definitely some smoke in the air at this point. At the same time, though, there was only so much stock that we could put into these posts as a whole.  We're unable to track down throwaway accounts with no emails attached, or reviews that don't have a profile to reach out to. 

With that in mind, we went through our contacts. We reached out to everyone we had on-file at Crunchyroll, and sought out answers. It took a bit of doing, but we were able to press enough to get a real, concrete answer from Ellation's CEO on the matter, which was a huge win overall.

Ultimately, the final call came down to that, while the Reddit posts and Glassdoor pieces were sexier, we couldn't independently verify them due to their anonymity. So, with some sadness, the final piece had to leave these bits out, lest we open ourselves to legal action. 

Really, I would have loved to do an extended piece on this with a full, thorough investigation, since the throwaways painted such a vivid picture. At the time, though, I just didn't have much time to branch out from the status quo. 

Still, I'm super proud of the work we did. This five-paragraph piece came about after close to ten hours of work, from initial tip to final publish. That we were able to beat the biggest fish in the pond to the punch by more than thirteen hours was just icing on the cake. 

That said, we did have a few questions regarding the authenticity of our reporting early on, as this was a direct statement. This is what led to us adopting the "[Company Name] (Email Communication)" format when listing our sources from then on.

-Samantha