http://www.lonelyplanet.com/about/thomas_kohnstamm.cfm
Thomas Kohnstamm and our guidebooks
A former Lonely Planet author, Thomas Kohnstamm, has written a book called Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? about his life as a travel writer. Thomas' book contains several allegations about his guidebook writing.
Specifically, Thomas claims that during his time as a travel author, he skipped visiting certain destinations, plagiarised from other sources and traded good reviews for in-kind favours.
This behaviour is completely contrary to what Lonely Planet is all about. Because of the nature of Thomas' claims, we're carefully reviewing all the Lonely Planet content he has worked on. Where we find problems or discrepancies, we will tell you immediately and replace that content with accurate, up-to-date material.
Here's what we've found so far:
1. There are three titles in print to which Thomas has contributed on-the-ground research. The affected titles are Chile & Easter Island (7th edition), South America on a shoestring (10th edition) and Caribbean Islands (4th edition). We have sent out author teams to fact-check all his material in these books.
2. Thomas talks most about his work on Brazil (6th edition). This book is now out of print and has been replaced by the current edition. This has been fully updated, and Thomas has not contributed to it at all.
3. Thomas has claimed that he was not paid enough to travel to Colombia when he was employed as an author on our Colombia guide. The fact is that Thomas was not employed as an on-the-ground author on that guidebook. This means that he did not write any reviews - of places or establishments - in this book. His contribution was to the introductory chapter covering history, culture, food and drink and environment. Two on-the-ground authors wrote the reviews for the Colombia guide.
4. We are also reviewing Venezuela (5th edition). Thomas did not contribute destination information to this guidebook, but did act in a coordinating role during its production.
5. Thomas claims he was not paid enough by Lonely Planet to do the job without shortcuts. While we ask a lot of our authors, we lead the industry in the fees we pay, and are committed to a yearly review of author fees.
We're confident that the vast majority of our information is sound and accurate. Where we find any problems, we'll make it right by providing new content. We know that you place a huge amount of trust in us, and we will live up to that trust.
If you want to weigh in on the discussion, go to this specially established branch of the Thorn Tree. For more information on Lonely Planet authors, head to our author page.
Чудак решил попиариться, а мелкие недочеты не в счет.