A man was dead and the scene was chaotic. People were running to and fro, like ants battling for position around a dropped potato chip. The photographer and I scrambled to the scene, trying to figure out where to be, who to talk to. The landscape was crazed and sad and unpredictable. Journalists don’t always know where to be, you should understand. They react on instinct and training, weighing opportunity against good taste.

This one dude though, he was insane with questions. He ran from person to person, from cop to homeless man with questions firing like rounds from an automatic weapon.

“Where was he found? Was he bleeding? How much was he bleeding? Was he facing up or facing down? Who found him? When did they find him?”

Believe what you want. Reporters – most of them, anyway – don’t want bad things to happen. We just want to be there when they do.

If you think we are above feelings of sadness or disgust, anger or unease, you are missing something. You have become so accustomed to blaming the messenger, you don’t even see that your fury is misplaced.

The photographer was shooting pictures. I was scanning the scene, trying to figure out who to approach: the cop battling to keep onlookers away? The weeping woman with her hands pressed to her mouth?

A conundrum. But that other guy was still rushing around and scattering his questions like birdshot. From cop to woman, from teenager to child, he raced from here to there unleashing his questions like attack dogs.

“Who did it? Who do you think did it? Who was he with? Why was he here?”

At the scene of a killing, you will find a dozen people who insist they saw it all but claim they saw nothing. Or you will find a dozen people who insist they saw nothing when in fact they saw it all.

A shirtless boy stands to the side, gnawing his lip and blinking rapidly. He probably just saw a man knifed to death on the path where he rides his bike. Do you try to talk to him?

A woman is weeping in the tall grass. She may have lost someone she adores in a moment of insanity. Do you try to get a comment from her?

This one dude was the ultimate reporter. He had no such reservations about seeking the answers he craved like a bee craves honey.

“What’s his name? Where is he from? Who is this dead man?”

And who am I to condemn him for the barrage? I know there are 40,000 Sun Journal readers who will want answers to those questions when they pluck the paper from their front steps. Why am I standing here taking a silent survey when this other fellow is reacting with a convulsion of questions?

Let me tell you something. Being a reporter at a killing is not easy. You need to be both a human being and a news gatherer. Come back with scant information, you will be branded as lazy. Come back with too much, you will be scalded with accusations that you’re a cold and wretched creature with no sense of decency or respect for the dead.

I struggle with that balance, but this newbie on the scene did not.

“Somebody tell me who stabbed him! Somebody tell me what happened!”

I wanted to know; my photographer wanted to know. The hundred people standing around watching the death machine, with its red and blue lights and gold badges gleaming in the sun, wanted to know. The police wanted to know more than anyone.

But can you just scream the questions like that? Does volume spur quicker or more precise answers?

You want to be a good reporter. No, you want to be a great reporter. But you want to be fair and human, too. That’s what a lot of you don’t understand. We are not vampires, licking our lips at the first scent of blood. When someone gets sliced up on a bicycle path, we realize it could have been our brother or friend, our mother or sister.

We don’t want bad things to happen. We only want to be there when they do.

And then you see this rapid-fire display of curiosity, no attempt at sensitivity, and you think maybe that’s what it takes to be the ultimate journalist.

“What happened? Who did it? Why did he do it?”

That bold and tireless seeker of answers wasn’t a reporter, he was a kid about 4 feet tall. Maybe 8 years old, with a basketball jersey that hung down to his ankles, and he was out there like a tiny robot programmed to get as many answers as he could in the shortest length of time.

Are you going to blame a kid for being unabashed in his approach to the big mysteries of life? Will you deride him for screaming his questions until he is satisfied?

No, man, you are not. Because when things go horribly wrong, someone has to ask the big questions before politics or emotions get in the way. And where better than from the mouths of babes to learn everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask?

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. You can e-mail him at [email protected].