As the top spokeswoman for the cable channel TLC, Ms. Goldberg has handled the spotlight on Sarah Palin’s reality show, the rise and fall of “Jon Kate Plus 8,” and a legal spat over “Sister Wives,” a show about polygamists, just to name a few.

Last month, it was a documentary-style reality show about Muslim families in Michigan, “All-American Muslim,” that suddenly became a press sensation. A man in Florida called for an advertiser boycott, and Lowe’s, the home improvement retailer, listened. By Dec. 12, reporters were calling, cable news producers were scrambling and politicians were fuming.

Ms. Goldberg said almost nothing on the record about the controversy, lest she spur more coverage. But behind the scenes she was trying to influence reporters’ views of the mostly imaginary boycott, counseling the show’s cast to stay positive and answering a call from the music and fashion entrepreneur Russell Simmons, who had pledged to buy up any remaining ad time.

“Been quite a day … I thought the BlackBerry might explode,” Ms. Goldberg wrote on Facebook the night of Dec. 12.

“I can relate!” replied Shadia McDermott, one of the show’s most prominent cast members.

“Give us a day. Things will turn around,” Ms. Goldberg answered. “I’ve got your back.”

Then another of Ms. Goldberg’s friends replied, “Probably makes you wish you had ‘Jon and Kate’ back again, huh?”

Despite all its controversial shows, TLC’s brand has remained mostly unblemished these last few years. That may be in part because while Ms. Goldberg is genial and helpful with reporters off the record, she routinely doles out no-comments to them on the record, thereby refusing to make big stories bigger. She declined to be interviewed on the record for this story.

“She lets the programs do the talking; she keeps the brands on the sidelines,” said David Leavy, who heads up corporate communications for TLC’s parent, Discovery Communications.

Just as important, Ms. Goldberg forges close friendships with the cast members of TV shows — as shown by the Facebook conversations — and guides them through the glare of the press.

“She’s in a really unique position because she works with reality-show talent that don’t have publicists of their own,” said Kate Coyne, an assistant managing editor for People magazine, who met Ms. Goldberg while covering the very public collapse of Kate and Jon Gosselin’s marriage.

“Laurie Goldberg is just about the only person I’ve ever seen say to Kate Gosselin, ‘You can’t do that.’ She’s very, very maternal in that sense,” Ms. Coyne said.

Few viewers know it, but public relations pros are often intimately involved in the decision-making at TV channels. Not only are they in the room, so to speak, they are speaking up.

“We’ve been fairly prominent in the pop culture,” said Eileen O’Neill, who oversees TLC, “and I don’t think I would have had the confidence to navigate it without Laurie’s skill set.”

When Ms. O’Neill was promoted to oversee both TLC and the Discovery Channel, she swiftly promoted Ms. Goldberg to a similar public relations position. Together, they sometimes even plan for controversies that don’t arise. When Discovery began showing “Weed Wars,” a reality show about a medical marijuana business, “we prepared for bigger issues to emerge, and they didn’t,” Ms. O’Neill said.

But at least a couple times each week, there’s a flare-up of one kind or another — one of the consequences of creating stars out of so many ordinary people. Last Friday, Ms. Goldberg’s Utah vacation was interrupted by questions about the authenticity of “Moonshiners,” a new show on Discovery. She declined to comment.

Ms. Goldberg majored in education in college and worked briefly as a photographer before becoming a public relations representative for trading card makers, a blues musician and the Cartoon Network. Her sister, the late humor writer Margo Kaufman, helped her to see from a reporter’s perspective.

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