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Breaking News: Lonely Planet bought by BBC

Travel guide publisher Lonely Planet today was acquired by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the British broadcaster.  BBCW purchased a 75% stake in the company, founded by Tony & Maureen Wheeler in 1972. The Wheelers, who pioneered the long-haul guidebook category with their first title, Across Asia on the Cheap, retain a 25% share in the company.

Lonely Planet has evolved over three decades into a leading global brand for independent travelers, with a list of more than 500 guidebooks and the multiple-webby winning travel site, Lonelyplanet.com.

One reason for the purchase is Lonely Planet's potential for growth in the digital space and global markets, said the BBCW. Terms of the deal were not announced.

Article: Can the Washington Post Survive?

It's no great secret that the US newspaper industry is freaking out. But how can writers, reporters and content producers adapt to the changing needs of the industry? What's the best plan of action for staying relevant to the editors?

In this Fortune Magazine/CNN.com report by Marc Gunther on the state of the Washington Post, the answer is to diversify: Reporters increasingingly provide multi-platform content that stretches far beyond words, while publishers are rushing headlong into new media solutions.

(Fortune Magazine) -- Barry Svrluga, a 36-year-old baseball writer for The Washington Post, was on his way to the barber when an e-mail pinged his BlackBerry telling him that the Washington Nationals had sent two struggling pitchers to the minor leagues. Svrluga detoured to Starbucks, wrote a 572-word commentary on his laptop and posted it to his blog, Nationals Journal at washingtonpost.com. After his haircut he swung by the Post's newsroom to do a live question-and-answer session online with fans. That night, after filing a story for the newspaper, which he calls the "$0.35 edition" in his blog, Svrluga recorded a ten-minute podcast for the Web site, with sound bites from team officials and players.

Like most reporters at the Post, Svrluga has become platform-agnostic, which is a nice way of saying that his bosses are no longer big believers in print. Today a small army of bloggers, podcasters, chatroom hosts, radio voices and TV talking heads, as well as a few old-fashioned ink-stained wretches, populates the newsroom at the 131-year-old Post. They understand that Donald E. Graham, the chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Co., is hurrying the paper into the digital future. "If circulation is dropping," Svrluga explains, "and we're trying to figure out how people are going to get their news, who am I to say no to trying out new avenues?"

New avenues: That's the story of the newspaper business right now. Alarmed by declining circulation, advertising and profits, America's newspaper publishers - as hidebound a collection of businesspeople as you can find - are thrashing about to see whether they can separate the news from the paper and still make money. They're going way beyond the headlines.

Full story, here.

Lonely Planet New York City 5

Hot off the presses, Lonely Planet's New York City 5. Featuring interviews with New Yorkers on their tips and tricks for navigating NYC.

therefore_I_travel
Originally uploaded by droccadnoh.

Media News: Yahoo, Current TV Partnering

Not sure how this will play out yet, but Al Gore's fledgling user-generated video site Current TV announced partnering plans with Yahoo. Sounds great, still would love to get it on Alameda Telecom.

Insight from the New York Observer: NYO - NYTV.

Back to the Big Easy

As Commissioning Editor - US East at Lonely Planet, my terrain includes New Orleans and the American Gulf South. It also covers Florida, so I was aware of that class one hurricane that ripped across the state, toward the Gulf of Mexico and class 5 infamy as Katrina.

I wrote LP's breaking news dispatches during the week of Katrina, and hosted a Lonely Planet podcast discussion of post-hurricane Louisiana with Lonely Planet author Pableaux Johnson.

  New Orleans Protest Car 
  Originally uploaded by howieluvzus.

In November, I returned to New Orleans to report on its progress, three months post-Katrina. I toured the neighborhoods, with an eye toward the reopened few outposts amid the bathtub ring.

  Debris 
  Originally uploaded by emmajane82.

The city has far to go but many believers and a hearty defiance. To survey and spread some love, go now.

In Colorado, Pt II

Six long weeks since posting! Lots accomplished over the time.

Much pertaining to work: A new Miami & the Keys book, finished and shelf-bound for September. New authors hired for New Orleans, NYC and Nicaragua & El Salvador. Florida, Chicago, Alaska in production. Longer-range plans for online and youth market products. I took a branding strategies class at San Francisco State University, and finished and started teaching new cycles of travel writing classesn for Media Bistro. All fun indeed. As always, better busy than bored.

At last post, in Boulder, we'd yet to see our Coloradan peak: Steamboat Springs, the northwest CO ski resort / ranch town where Uncle Randall had relocated. Randall lived at Hahn's Peak, a tiny, cute old burg built for a gold spat in the 19th century, about 18 miles north of town, at a spur off the Wyoming road beneath the aforementioned Hahs Peak. Across the road, Steamboat Lake poured about valley crevices, an occasional water skier carving fresh waves. At the junction, we eat at Hahn's Peak Cafe, a welcoming cappucino and carne asada roadside grill. Wonder how Thai food would go over there.

Steamboat hit all the right notes, from the Yampa River-side picnic park with a gazebo and swings, to the thumping from the free Steel Pulse concert in the foothills. Hahn's Peak was inspiring, and got us looking at real estate rags. Vail Valley was thick with development along I-70 back to Boulder, impressively gaudy enough to a California to explain why so many of us have moved there, and home to enough only-in-Colorado-type fitness freaks to warrant a bike path paralleling the highway, all the way up to the Eisenhower Tunnel..

USA Today in the Sky

I'm a huge fan of Ben Mutzabaugh's 'Today in the Sky' column in the USA Today. His blend of hard news, industry insight and downright hilarious outtakes from the world of air travel make the column a must-read in the daily USA Today Travel section, a surprisingly strong one throughout.

Recent columns have Ben railing on Northwest Airlines for cutting inflight pretzels , and magazines , spotlighting ways the discounters are flexing their political muscles on the Hill, revealing that Hooters Air founders may have highjacked the idea from college students and relaying tales of Australian fish smugglers.