So Manti Te’o, who most Americans believe to be a big old liar, visited Katie Couric‘s office for his first official post-scandal interview, set to air tomorrow. While we’re interested in the fact that he admitted to “briefly” lying about the fake dead girlfriend hoax for six weeks after learning that he’d been duped (yeah right), we’d like to examine the “Inside PR” aspects of the story.

We love Katie and all, but no one would call her a sports journalist–and we don’t feel like the scandal is quite big enough to justify a trip to Oprah-land (though the Te’o family apparently considered Oprah and Dr. Phil before settling for Couric). So how did she score this top interview? Well, the fact that the two parties share a publicist certainly didn’t hurt. That’s right–Matthew Hiltzik of Hiltzik Strategies (MediaBeat interview after the jump) now performs crisis comms/damage control duties for both Couric and Te’o, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Te’o chose Couric over both Oprah and ESPN.

Is this standard operating procedure? Or does it raise even more questions about the players involved in this sordid tale?

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Even when his hot temper and itchy Twitter fingers gets him into trouble, Alec Baldwin‘s personality and celebrity step in to save the day.

As you must know by now, Baldwin had a run in with a New York Daily News photographer the other day as he was leaving the Manhattan marriage license bureau. Of course, the newspaper has been playing this up like crazy for the past two days. And Baldwin’s spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik was busy putting out a statement that makes it clear the actor was merely defending himself.

But it’s Baldwin who has managed to tamp down any serious publicity problems stemming from the incident.

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Many year-end listicles have focused on the top PR gaffes of the past year. However, the year has also shown the power to turn around a bad situation into good or, as the title of this top five list states, to turn PR lemons into sweet, refreshing public relations lemonade. Here are our choices for those instances where a fail was transformed into, as our contributor Nancy Lazarus calls it, a “tactful turnaround.”

5. Aflac Finds a New Spokesduck. After the voice of Aflac’s duck mascot, Gilbert Gottfried, was dismissed for making insensitive “jokes” about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March, the insurance company launched a nationwide search for a new mascot. Rather than settling for a public apology on behalf of its former spokesperson, the company turned the search into a PR campaign, with the New York Times covering the New York audition. We said then it would be a PR moment to remember, and we stand by that.

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If you’ve been watching Twitter over the past hour or so, you’ve seen the tweets about Alec Baldwin being booted off of an American flight either because he was using an electronic device or because he was rude to an attendant.

His spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik has cleared it up.

“Alec was asked to leave the flight for playing ‘Words with Friends’ on his iPad, while parked at the gate. Alec is so in love with ‘Words with Friends’ that he would risk getting thrown off a flight to play. He’s already been re-booked on another American Airlines flight,” he said in a statement, which  has also been tweeted.

Baldwin has been booked on another flight. American has no comment. Alec Baldwin has plenty to say. Also, free publicity for Words With Friends!

*Update: Did we say free publicity for Words With Friends? Their statement after the jump.

[via MSNBC.com]

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Mariah Yeater, the woman who accused Justin Bieber — of all people — of fathering her three-month-old son, has dropped her lawsuit. TMZ has already published damaging text messages that indicate Yeater may have been trying to delete correspondence that points the paternity finger at another guy. But the Biebs hasn’t dropped his intentions of taking a DNA test.

From the beginning, Bieber and his people (which includes publicist Matthew Hiltzik) denied that there was any truth to Yeater’s allegations and they planned to back it up with a paternity test. Now with the case terminated, it would seem Bieber has been vindicated. Even still, E! is reporting that Bieber plans on going ahead with the test.

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Epic, epic scandal today involving Justin Bieber and, of all things, sex.

A 20-year-old woman (really?), Mariah Yeater, claims that her son is Bieber’s following a post-show encounter in Los Angeles last year. Bieber’s publicist Matthew Hiltzik has responded with a strongly-worded denial on behalf of his client: “While we haven’t yet seen the lawsuit, it’s sad that someone would fabricate malicious, defamatory, and demonstrably false claims.”

Much less strongly worded is the tweet above from the Bieb, who up to this point, managed to scandalize us only with the occasional shot of him and Selena Gomez sharing a smooch or something equally innocent.

Immediately, one thinks of his clean-cut reputation, which has made him the monster favorite to tweens around the world. The Washington Post doesn’t think this will tarnish his reputation, but that may all depend on what comes out as this situation wears on. Your thoughts? The comments section is open. “Mariah Yeater” is currently trending on Twitter and it looks like a lot of people don’t believe her story.

In a move has been anticipated for some weeks, Katie Couric is joining Disney/ABC Television Group to produce and host a daytime talk show that will debut next year. Prior to that, she’s joining ABC News this summer to report for both the broadcast and online outlets.

“While many are familiar with her myriad accomplishments, I’m delighted to remind you that Katie got her start in our business in 1979 as an ABC News desk assistant in our Washington bureau,” ABC News president Ben Sherwood said in a statement.

Publicist Matthew Hiltzik was a member of the Couric “camp” that helped to negotiate her new position. We spoke with Hiltzik for a Media Beat interview last year. You can check it out here.

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Alec Baldwin will not replace Keith Olbermann. The news came via MSNBC spokesperson Jeremy Gaines and Baldwin’s spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik. “Alec is committed to 30 Rock through 2012,” Hiltzik told the New York Daily News.

Management at TripAdvisor’s “dirtiest hotel” selection announced that they’ve hired a housekeeper.

Facebook reiterates its commitment to security after Mark Zuckerberg and French President Nicolas Sarkozy get hacked. BTW, Friday is Data Privacy Day!

Michael Vick has an endorsement deal.

Jane Fonda‘s latest workout videos target those ages 50 and over.

Taco Bell has been hit with a class action lawsuit over the nature of its meat. Taco Bell president and chief concept officer Greg Creed has published a statement on the company’s website saying, “Unfortunately, the lawyers in this case elected to sue first and ask questions later — and got their “facts” absolutely wrong.”

Caroline Wolter Starke has joined APCO Worldwide as a VP. She previously specialized in corporate reputation building and issues management at Robinson Lerer & Montgomery Strategic Communications.

Stefanie Henning has joined Berkleemusic, the online continuing education division of Berklee College of Music, as CMO. Henning is the former SVP of global marketing and new media for Fox Television Studios, a division of News Corp.

The Lippin Group has promoted Cassy Salyer to VP of the firm. Salyer leads the online and social media initiatives for corporate entertainment, digital media and lifestyle brands.

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Matthew Hiltzik, CEO of public relations firm Hiltzik Strategies, spoke with Bloomberg Television today about Goldman Sachs’ PR strategy in the wake of an SEC investigation. Hiltzik represents Katie Couric, Don Imus, Glenn Beck and has worked with Hillary Clinton.

Hiltzik’s advice to Goldman Sachs:

The most important thing is to recognize what audiences you’re trying to reach. So you can break it down into their employees, is one key, the second one is within the financial world, and the third one would be the general public and elected officials.

On whether Goldman has been successful, thus far, in addressing the public:

Well I think we also have to consider what the right time is to be going out more publicly. When you’re looking at a week where you have the charges and then you have very strong earnings and then you have the President about to give a speech in New York in a couple of days, that’s not the exactly the best environment to be going out publically and discussing things.

Sometimes you end up feeding the controversy it ends up lasting longer and the intensity of it becomes much stronger as opposed to laying low for a little bit, and taking care and trying to build other constituencies potentially to work with you for more sensible reform then perhaps what people in Washington are trying to push now.

RELATED: mediabistro.com Media Beat interview with Matthew Hiltzik