"The Lonely Planet guidebook empire is reeling from claims by one of its authors that he plagiarised and made up large sections of his books and dealt drugs to make up for poor pay. [...]

"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."

(The Daily Telegraph, via: orf.at )

Surprising? Not really. All's fair in love and war and publishing...

Update: Thomas Kohnstamm and our guidebooks - Lonely Planet's position.
Discussion on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum.

Lonely Planet makes the best of the situation: They are reviewing all the information Kohnstamm has ever contributed to their South America guidebooks and keeping their readers up to date. They do not deny anything Kohnstamm said in his interview or attack him in response.
The majority of the LP readers understand, and don't focus their anger and frustration on LP, but on Kohnstamm. Even though LP does not say it directly (which could be interpreted against them), it becomes clear to everyone that things like that do happen. Accurancy of information is not even the topic here - it is marketing strategies. Things won't change if we stop relying on LP guidebooks, but the strategy will fail if we don't buy Kohnstamm's book.