Inside Base Camp's Tom Foreman on Work, Guests

National Geographic News

March 19, 2003

Presidents and prisoners; scientists and soldiers; the heroic and the hated— all have sat down with National Geographic Channel Senior Anchor Tom Foreman as he has traveled the globe for the past 25 years. Starting out in small town radio in Alabama, he progressed through local television to join ABC Network News when he was 30. For a decade he covered virtually every major news story for World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20 and Good Morning America.

Now, as host and managing editor of the Emmy award-winning Inside Base Camp with Tom Foreman, he brings his years of experience—and dozens of riveting guests—to the National Geographic Channel at 12:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, and Sundays at 11:00 a.m.

As the show's name implies, Foreman asks the intimate, revealing questions that cut to core of the passions that drive his guests.

So we turned the tables on him to ask: What pushes you past the point where other interviewers stop?

Foreman: I think the heart of it is my desire to explore and understand what motivates these people to do things that others only dream about. Our guests routinely risk their lives, their fortunes, and even their families to expand our understanding of our universe. And I'm not talking about just the physical universe. Sure, we have people such as Tori Murden, the woman who rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, but we also have conversations with folks like Ted Koppel. Ted came on the show to talk about ethnic hatred and how it is handed down through generations, and in the process he told us things about his own family's flight from the Nazis that I've never heard him talk about before.

How do you pick guests for Inside Base Camp with Tom Foreman?

For 115 years, the National Geographic Society has reported on the natural forces at work on our planet. This show is about the human forces that shape our world. So that is what we are looking for; and frankly, that is a very wide net. We have many influential, well-known people: Danny Glover talking about Africa; Jane Goodall talking about conservation; Ted Nugent talking about hunting and the environment. But we also have plenty of folks who are largely unknown, but who have spectacular stories to tell.

One of my favorites is Mark Ross. He is an American who leads safaris in Africa. He was with a group when rebel soldiers invaded their camp and took them all hostage. For hours, Mark and the other captives were marched at gunpoint through the jungle. He had to keep people focused, aware of their surroundings and moving, because…quite simply…every time one of them stopped, he or she was killed. Mark's story of how he negotiated with the gunmen, rallied the terrified captives, and ultimately secured their release is one of the most terrifying and inspiring stories I've ever heard. That is what we seek out in Base Camp; tales that contain lessons for all of us.

What kind of lessons?

Lessons about cultural conflict and understanding. Lessons about the frontiers of civilization and exploration. Lessons about the human spirit and the ability of people to find wonder, beauty and inner-strength even in difficult…sometimes life-threatening circumstances.

Are you often surprised?

I don't think we have had a single show where I wasn't surprised at least once.

For example?

Dr. Ruth Westheimer. We asked her to talk to us about sexual relations in cultures all over the globe and whether there are really any differences to be found. She ended up telling me about her time in the Israeli Army and how she was trained to be an excellent sniper. She claims she can still put five bullets into a circle the size of a quarter. That's a surprise.

Is there any subject you won't discuss?

We generally stay away from hard-core politics and economics, but everything else is fair game: religion, revenge, gender roles, you name it. And it can get pretty hot. We've had discussions about animal rights that threatened to turn into fistfights. But that's understandable. It's a very sensitive topic, with one side insisting animals are routinely brutalized by our culture and the other equally convinced that animals are treated as well as can be.

The bottom line for our show is that we have the debate and all sides get a fair hearing. I believe all these differing opinions on all these different topics, are what shapes our world culture and if we are to understand the world in which we live, we have to try to understand them. For that matter, we may need that understanding even as we grapple with the great frontier beyond our world…space.

One of our most entertaining visitors is Seth Shostak. He's dedicated his career to searching for extraterrestrial life and he is convinced one day we will find intelligent beings somewhere out in the stars.

Do you believe that?

I don't know. But I'm keeping a chair ready.