16 April 2008

Lonely Planet's Aaron Lamb responds to writer' plagiarism scandal

The following is a comment received yesterday from Aaron Lamb, a member of the media team at Lonely Planet, regarding a former Lonely Planet author, Thomas Kohnstamm's claims about his involvment in writing the Lonely Planet Guide to Colombia, pictured right, in a book called Do Travel Writers Go to Hell? about his life as a travel writer.

[The article appeared in TravelMole on Monday and can be seen by clicking on the link below:-

http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1127953.php]

Aaron's reponse was posted by Aaron as a Comment, but The Mole thought it was important enough to provide as an article:-

Hello there,

I work in the Media team at Lonely Planet and wanted to answer the questions posed in this thread.

We've posted some information about this here: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/about/thomas_kohnstamm.cfm

The books that Kohnstamm contributed to (including Colombia) are currently undergoing an urgent and comprehensive review to check whether or not the content has been compromised if it has, weÃ¢â¬â¢ll fix it.

Regarding Colombia, we would like to clarify that Kohnstamm was only contracted to do desk-based research on the History, Food and Drink, Environment and Culture chapters and not undertake in-destination reviews on attractions, accommodation, restaurants etc.

He has a masters in Latin American studies and studied Colombian history as part of his education.

Two other authors were commissioned to do on-the-ground research for the review section.

On the comments about pay, Lonely Planet believes it is an industry leader in the fees and conditions it provides to authors, and our fees are very competitive when compared to other guidebook publishers and we now review fees annually.

If you have any other questions or concerns IÃ¢â¬â¢m happy to help.

Aaron

The comments on the Lonely Planet site go on to say:-

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.

Thank you Aaron for setting the record straight and restoring faith in Lonely Planet's publications.

Please also view the Comments below the article at: http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1127953.php as they also raise some interesting issues and questions.

A Report by The Mole