PR WINNER OF THE WEEK: “A” (PR PERFECT) TO Dr. Phil. The glow of Oprah landing Lance Armstrong wore off after she asked him about doping in the first 30 seconds of her two-night interview. Switch to the next best “get” of the talk-show circuit – Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, the man who pretended for two years to be the tragic girlfriend of football star Manti Te’o. Dr. Phil knew enough not to open with the “why” but to drag out this fascinating, confounding story to a moment of climax. It was better than both Oprah’s Lance interview and Katie Couric’s sit-down with Te’o and weeping family. In the PR battles to be the nation’s confessor, Dr Phil scored a high point with this bizarre interview leaving the key question, why, to  last.

PR LOSER OF THE WEEK: “F” (FULL FIASCO) TO Tim Mathieson, husband of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Mathieson recently spoke at an event at the PM’s official residence to promote awareness of prostate cancer. Sharing advice with the media, he helpfully opined: “….the digital examination is the only true way to get a correct reading on your prostate. So make sure you go and do that, and perhaps look for a small Asian female doctor… ” Gillard, and presumably small Asian female doctors, were not amused. The PM looked stony faced, and there was a subsequent rushed apology by Mathieson.  Was this the dinner party joke best shared with Joan Rivers and friends only?

THE “THERE’S NO ‘THERE’ THERE” PR AWARD TO Brandi Glanville, who has a new book out called Drinking and Tweeting and Other Brandi Blunders. For the uninitiated, Glanville is a star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the ex-wife of actor Eddie Cibrian. For the uninterested, Brandi did an interview during which she dropped the v-bomb repeatedly talking about the medical procedure to ‘rejuvenate’ her own birth canal after multiple children. To her credit, the mention of her private parts did pertain to the story she was telling, and she used the proper word, not “va-jay-jay” or some other silly nickname. But Brandi still wins this award for gratuitous use of the word, without which we wouldn’t have even come to our attention. See? She was right. …We can’t believe we fell for it.