Watching the volcanic outrage over the AIG bonus money playing out in the media I wondered how the company would respond.

Many companies make the mistake of ducking for cover thinking they can wait out the storm.

While AIG is hardly the poster child for business communications, it made the right move with an op-ed from the CEO Edward Liddy in today’s Washington Post.

He frames the op-ed with classic storytelling; i.e., the disaster, hero to the rescue, corrective actions and finally the promise that everyone in Gotham City will eventually live happily after.

Let’s take a closer look.

The power of empathy championed by Oprah and her ilk is not lost on Mr. Liddy. His piece kicks off:

The government rescue of American International Group (AIG) and other financial firms has produced a palpable wave of anger on the part of Americans and a rising public demand for accountability from corporate and government leaders. The anger is understandable, and I share it.

Is he saying that he shares our anger or he shares an understanding that we’re angry? I’m not sure. Still, right move to jump on the anger bandwagon.

Next comes the mea cupa:

Mistakes were made at AIG, and on a scale that few could have imagined possible. The most egregious of those began in 1987, when the company strayed from its core insurance competencies …

Good word “egregious.” 

With the stage setting in place, our hero arrives on the scene. Here, Liddy makes it very clear that those “egregious” acts did not happen on his watch since “I answered the call for help and joined AIG in September 2008 …”

How has Liddy changed the behavior at AIG?

He makes a case with hard numbers that prudent fiscal management has been established highlighting that the top 47 execs made 56 percent less in 2008 than 2007. The sparseness in his language — “My annual salary is $1. My only stake is my reputation” — closes this section with a bit of drama.

In other words, other execs might have pigged out at the trough, but that’s not me. In fact, my financial stake is a single buck, and again, that bad stuff happened before I took the reins.

Finally, we get to the core issue.

Liddy refuses to use the B word, acknowledging that AIG made a “set of retention payments to employees based on a compensation system that prior management put in place.”

This is the one segment where I take issue with word choice. Everyone knows about the bonuses. Call them bonuses.

As we come down the home stretch, good conversational language follows that unfortunately derails at the critical junction:

Make no mistake, had I been chief executive at the time, I would never have approved the retention contracts that were put in place more than a year ago. It was distasteful to have to make these payments. But we concluded that the risks to the company and therefore the financial system and the economy, were unacceptable.

What does that last sentence mean? He was doing so well up to this point.

The piece closes with the happily-ever-after message.

I give AIG credit for recognizing the value of making its voice heard even in a hostile environment.

The op-ed is well crafted with elements of storytelling.

But the question on everyone’s mind still isn’t answered.

What are you going to do about all that bonus dough paid out?

No, I’m not talking about Matt Kenseth winning the Daytona 500.

Instead, consider what brings the vast majority of folks to the racetrack.

It’s the possibility to witness a high-speed wreck.

I’ve come to call the type of story that offers up the possibility of a wreck - defining “wreck” as an element of the story tied to the protagonist going horribly astray - as a “NASCAR story.”

I recently saw a front-page note in the San Jose Mercury News asking readers if they’re out of work, searching for a new job and interested in Warholic fame to drop the editors a note. The Merc will pick a few folks to follow on their job hunt and report on each saga.

This is a NASCAR story because the potential exists for a wreck. Given that almost 600,000 folks lost their jobs in January alone according to the U.S. Labor Department, there’s no guarantee that these stories will close with the birds chirping and everyone living happily ever after. 

I suppose it’s a similar dynamic to reality TV and what keeps people coming back to “American Idol” (as an aside, my daughter has Lil Rounds as the early favorite). The unscripted nature of this type of story means the reader/viewer doesn’t know the ending, with the potential wreck always lurking around the corner.

I’m surprised more communications professionals don’t develop and pitch NASCAR stories. No question, there’s a dimension of risk, but the reward can be opening doors at heavyweight publications without the typical news announcement.

I flagged a story last month in The Wall Street Journal titled “Cooking Up Ways to Improve Steaks on a Plane” (provided the link to the story on MSN for those without a subscription to the online Journal). It’s an entertaining read as columnist Scott McCartney essentially places himself at the hip of the Singapore Airlines’ head of food service, Mr. Freidanck, as he evaluates one of the airline’s food vendors, the Chelsea Food Service based in Houston.

It’s also a NASCAR story.

McCartney’s unscripted “access” makes for drama and a narrative rich in anecdotes:

Because the dry air of a jet cabin dries mouths, taste is diminished in flight. So Singapore and other carriers exaggerate flavors in meals.

The piece also contains a few mini-wrecks in which the caterer’s executive chef gets raked over the coals (couldn’t resist):

Mr. Freidanck tastes while Shashi Nath, Chelsea’s executive chef, awaits judgment. A corn chowder isn’t thick enough. Oops, celeriac and pear cream soup is too thick. “Do they really understand celeriac here in Texas?” Mr. Freidanck asks the throng taking notes on every order.

A sauce is too starchy; beef soup is too salty. “Something was lost in translation on the beef soup,” he says. Crabmeat on top of avocados in one salad looks messy and he redesigns the layout himself, then photographs it when he gets it exactly as he wants it. Mushrooms in one dish are chopped too small, their variety unrecognizable. Muscovy duck is undercooked and doesn’t taste right. “It’s not Muscovy!” Mr. Freidanck says.

“It is positively,” Mr. Nath insists.

I can almost picture a shouting match: “It’s not a Muscovy duck … Yes it is … No it isn’t … Yes it is.”

Yet, even with the negatives, the reader takes away an overall positive impression of Singapore Airlines and its quest to serve the customer.

Kudos to the Singapore Airlines PR team (assuming the seed of the story came from them) for not only manufacturing the storyline but for selling the concept to management.

The media loves NASCAR stories.

It would behoove communications professionals to push beyond their comfort zone and that of their company to develop these types of angles with unhandled access. Such an approach certainly better aligns with the needs of the media than a news release. 

When we last addressed Mr. Jobs he was taking a pass on Macworld.

More recently, unless you’ve spent the last week in the proverbial cave, you’ve seen the cavalcade of stories on Steve Jobs taking a leave of absence from Apple.

The common denominator in the stories revolves around understanding his replacement, Tim Cook.

It’s revealing to contrast a blog posting from The Wall Street Journal by Nick Wingfield with a story in the San Jose Mercury News penned by Brandon Bailey ”Iron Reporter”-style (further proof that I’m spending way too much time on the Food Network).

Let’s start with the headlines.

“When Steve Jobs Met Tim Cook” (Journal) versus “Tim Cook – Jobs’ temporary replacement at Apple – seen as strong manger” (Merc).

No contest.

The Journal story promises to put me in the room for the first Jobs-Cook interaction, with instant drama coming from the question “what happened?”  

Was it “like” at first sight?  

Did Cook wear a “Vote for Ike” button as an icebreaker?  

On the other hand, the Merc header indicates that we’re likely going to read a rehash of what’s already known by even pedestrian Apple watchers. 

And that’s about how it plays out. 

Wingfield deserves credit for tracking down the recruiter at Heidrick & Struggles who served as the matchmaker back in 1998. (The fact that the recruiter no longer works for Heidrick tells me that Heidrick PR did not pitch the story angle.) While the walk down memory lane won’t evoke foreshadowing like F. Scott Fitzgerald, at least it’s different from the thousands of Cook-knows-how-to-make-the-trains-run-on-time stories. The anecdote that Steve isn’t big on collecting barber chairs adds some levity. 

The Merc story kicks off with the premise that Cook is the right man for the short-term gig, supported by “scintillating” quotes from two sources: 

“He’s the guy that makes sure everything gets executed properly. He’s excellent at getting things done.” (Tim Bajarin from Creative Strategies) 

The 48-year-old Cook is “not a product innovator. But he runs a very tight ship.” (Brian Marshall from Broadpoint AmTech) 

Needless to say, we won’t be adding these quotes to our art of storytelling curriculum … which isn’t to diss the two sources. We know Bajarin, who is absolutely clued into Apple and often communicates with a compelling bent. But what shows up in this particular article from the sources interviewed doesn’t make for an enlightening read. 

It turns out that the best color in the Merc piece gets borrowed from Fortune’s profile on Cook last year: 

A recent article in Fortune magazine described a management meeting in which Cook was discussing a problem with Apple’s Asian operations. “This is really a problem,” Cook reportedly said. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes later, Cook turned to a subordinate and calmly inquired: “Why are you still here?” The man immediately left the meeting, the magazine said; he drove straight to the airport and flew to China without a change of clothes.

Even with the limitations of a 24-hour news cycle, you would think the paper in Apple’s backyard could do a little better on the original reporting front (although finding a tidbit in the Cook family’s hometown paper, the Robertsdale Independent was a nice touch).

I do recognize that both the Journal and the Merc have published multiple stories on this topic. It’s plausible that with a little more initiative on my part, I could have found a dull Journal piece and a Merc story with panache. 

It’s also not lost on me that the blog as a medium for reporting offers the latitude to capture vignettes that otherwise wouldn’t be substantial enough to make the printed page. 

Still, I think this exercise sheds light on how to create – or suffocate – drama in business communications.

I came across an enlightening piece called “Becoming a Storyteller, Not Just a Reporter” (you might need to scroll down to reach the article). 

While the entire piece is worth a read, the following advice caught my attention:

Don’t limit your inquiry, or your thinking, to the basics of journalism: Who, what, when, where, why, how. Think in terms of story elements: setting, character, plot, conflict, climax, resolution, dialogue, theme.

Yes.

This captures the essence of how journalism is striving for a greater entertainment quotient.

I studied journalism at the University of Arizona on the heels of Watergate, which in turn caused a stampede of “Woodstein” wannabes to the country’s J-schools. To prune the glamour seekers, the professors relentlessly preached the who-what-when-where-why-how principle - a bit ironic considering the drama that culminated with the resignation of President Nixon.

Today, this principle frames the article, with the storytelling elements outlined above often shaping the content.

That’s why communicating with only the facts falls short of meeting the needs of today’s media.