Lonely Planet writer admits to plagiarism and dealing drugs
Posted by Emma Torry on April 14, 2008 at 11:06 AM
Not a good weekend for the Lonely Planet empire. One of its writers has admitted to plagiarising large sections of his books and to dealing drugs to supplement poor pay.
Thomas Kohnstamm, who worked on several Lonely Planet guidebooks including Brazil, Colombia, the Caribbean, South America, Venezuela and Chile, revealed all to an Australian newspaper yesterday.
The Daily Telegraph reports that in one instance Kohnstamm did not even visit the country he wrote about.
"They didn't pay me enough to go Colombia,'' he said.
"I wrote the book in San Francisco. I got the information from a chick I was dating - an intern in the Colombian Consulate.
"They don't pay enough for what they expect the authors to do."
Apparently Lonely Planet is urgently reviewing all of Kohnstamm's books.
Where shall I go? by The Wandering Angel via Flickr (Creative Commons)
