Former Atlanta advertising exec wins $1.5 million verdict

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Fulton County jury late Thursday awarded a former Atlanta advertising executive almost $1.5 million for being libeled in an article published in AdWeek.

Mark Gettner, who now lives in Chicago, was awarded $1 million for the damage to his reputation and $492,000 in lost wages, his lawyer, Amanda Farahany, said Friday.

“We’re very pleased,” Farahany said. “He was on a ladder to progress his career and was thrown off his ladder. This was about clearing his name.”

From 1999 to 2003, Gettner worked for the Atlanta advertising firm Fitzgerald+CO. At one time, he was executive creative director but then stepped down to become group creative director. In “Agency Report Cards,” published in April 2003, AdWeek reported that Gettner had been demoted “after poor performance.” The article appeared one month after Gettner left the company.

In reaching their verdict, Fulton jurors found that the article was not true and that AdWeek was negligent because it failed to contact Gettner or fully verify the information, Farahany said.

The verdict was issued against VNU Business Media Inc., which was part of Nielsen and which owned AdWeek at the time of the publication. "While we certainly respect the jury's verdict, we strongly disagree with the outcome and plan to explore all avenues of appeal," Nielsen said in a statement.