Always at the ready to swat away a junket reporter when the questioning strays off movie-pimping topic, or phone in a craftily worded, 4 a.m. denial ("Not only was my client not acquainted with the dead hooker in question, he wasn't even in Las Vegas this weekend. He was shooting his upcoming guest appearance on Entourage!"), it's time Hollywood's hard-working plate-spinners get the recognition they deserve.

Without further ado, then, we proudly present The 2008 Defamer Flack Honors. Winners, please come forward to collect your trophy (a clipboard-wielding thirtysomething woman hurling herself upon a grenade, cast in the finest bronze), and say a few carefully chosen words of appreciation.

Most Loyal
Elliot Mintz
Taking on Paris Hilton as a client is not a task for the fainthearted; but doing it with the gusto and blind obedience demonstrated time and again by Elliot Mintz elevates him from the rank-and-flacky-file to the level of some kind of publicist archangel. Not only did Mintz return to his post after his client's failed attempt at tossing him under a bus during her suspended license trial, he slathered himself, for reasons still not completely understood, in orange face paint for her birthday festivities. We're choking back tears right now.

Best Liar
Liz Rosenberg
Madonna's rep Liz Rosenberg had the publicity equivalent of SoCal wildfires to contend with this year, as if dropped by parachute with nothing but a watering can and her own slippery wits to fend off the singer's raging divorce inferno. It was enough to make a flack long for the relative innocuousness of new-new-face scrutiny, tales of corset-crappings, and other assorted moustache rides.

Still, even the most gifted of professional liars are bound by human constraints. As we tried in vain to place all the appropriate pushpins in our increasingly convoluted MadgeRod CynthRavitz Clusterfuck case map, Liz & Co. themselves could barely keep track of which fibs were meant for us, and which were never meant to leave the walls of Spin Control HQ.

The Worst Publicist in the World
Jonathan Jaxson
True, we crowned Jonathan Jaxson The Worst Publicist in the World back in November, with two months and one Jeremy Piven handroll-related P.R. nightmare to go before 2008 closed out. Didn't matter. The second we met Cheetah Girl Adrienne Bailon's spokesperson, and listened to him tell an Atlanta CBS affiliate's morning show audience of his plan to fake a nude photo scandal that (surprise!) backfired, eventually leading to his client and her fellow Cheetahettes being disinvited from the Macy's parade, we knew we had met a bold new breed of publicist, far deadlier than any that came before. This is the P-2000: Incompetent Robot P.R. Killing Machine. Fight the future.

We asked Liz Rosenberg about this discrepancy between what she said earlier, and what's happening now. Her answer: "there was no pending divorce earlier this year."

So, we asked, does that mean that, for example, the Sun's report that Madonna "initially planned to move back to the US with their three children in July" is false? "yes," Rosenberg replied.

Well, how credible is Liz Rosenberg? She told the world in 2006 that Madonna was not adopting a baby in Malawi. Although, of course, Madonna did adopt a baby in Malawi.

What else do we know about Rosenberg?

• According to CityFile, she's "best known for having served as Madonna's flack for more than 20 years. Other clients have included the Pretenders, Cher, Josh Groban, Stevie Nicks, Seal, k.d. Lang, and Liza Minnelli."
• She does a good job of staying friendly with celebrity magazine editors, naturally—she's allegedly been showering the editor of People with free Madonna tickets for a decade or more.
• She knows how to play hardball—she reportedly managed to silence a good deal of potential press coverage of Madonna's brother Christopher Ciccone's book last summer, which portrayed the singer negatively.

So Rosenberg does her job. Regardless, no matter how much wheedling, pleading, bargaining, threats, or doubletalk a flack uses, they're not supposed to flat-out lie. But Rosenberg has quite a reputation for lying. Look! Some of the most vehement "Rosenberg is a liar" voices are the most fervent Madonna fans, like commenters on AbsoluteMadonna.com. It might be advantageous to court them, from a PR point of view!

Celebrity flacks are probably the only remaining category of PR people who can get away with bald-faced lies, and continue to be effective in their jobs. Corporate flacks run the risk of pissing off business reporters (or even the SEC), which would make them liabilities. Media flacks? Lord, they have to be friends with reporters. To lie is to die. Despite the vague public perception that all flacks are liars, they really can't be if they want to have a long-term career.

Unless they have a client like Madonna! Because the celebrity media will want to cover Madonna for the rest of her natural life no matter what she or her flack does. So Liz Rosenberg, yes, probably finds it expedient to just lie and now and then, without any real consequences.

But that also means you shouldn't necessarily believe anything she says.

[pic via Celebrity Wonder]

Jossip says that Rosenberg saw a promo spot for a Ciccone interview, became enraged, and promptly made some phone calls to ensure that neither Entertainment Tonight nor The Insider would give his book any coverage. Considering Rosenberg's reputation for pulling strings—and her control of Madonna, a much huger bargaining chip than anything Ciccone could offer on a long term basis—it's plausible.

Now a clip of Good Morning America's interview—they're too big for Rosenberg to cow, apparently:

[Jossip]

1. Liz Rosenberg: Lied about a poor African child, of all things. If she turns out to have lied about the divorce as well, she will only solidify her top spot here.

2. Stephen Huvane: Kirsten Dunst's rep assured everyone that Dunst was "fine," shortly before the actress checked into rehab. Then assured everyone that Dunst "is not being treated for cocaine or any drug." Yea.

3. Rob Shuter: A serial manipulator who invented a relationship between client Jessica Simpson and crooner John Mayer, which then blew up in his face. Now edits OK! magazine, appropriately.

4. Rachna Shah: The Interview magazine flack scolded us for printing a scurrilous rumor that editor Ingrid Sischy would be leaving the magazine. A rumor that turned out to be true. A conscious lie, or just internal miscommunication? Either way, we were right.

5. Edelman: An anonymous media trainer at the mega-firm was outed by a tipster for telling clients, "Sometimes you just have to stand up there and lie." This brought an angry response from CEO Richard Edelman, who has himself lied on behalf of Wal-Mart.

6. Scott McClellan: Rotund former Bush lap doggie who wrote a book being sad about all the lying he did. Not that the PR industry cares or anything.

7. Danielle Perissi: Time Warner's fibbingest flack. Not a good person to call with questions about Time Warner, oddly enough. Now she's gone.