You bet it's a problem, and it is a somewhat new trend on Twitter. Someone blazed the trail and now every harried producer has a read-only Twitter account and mimics it; it's a last-couple-of-years phenomenon. I appreciate nothing more than coming across a grieving Twitter page showing photos of horrors with a billion entry level producers underneath it clamoring for usage rights like feeding sharks. This happened to you, it sounds like, and luckily you were removed enough from the story that it was no big deal.

You might react and go "that's horrible, why would they do that?" but remember when Cathriona White died, and every 'news' organization in the world immediately (and I mean immediately) started calling her family demanding an interview simply on the basis of her relationship with Jim Carrey? I seem to recall someone in her family saying that they heard about her death from a reporter calling and asking for comment from a seven year old. He was pissed about it and good for him, really, and I say that as someone who used to be in a slightly more respectable part of that bloody industry.

Twenty four hour news and, later, the Internet did this to us (well, really, we did and these were merely tools to satiate human nature). There is zero regard for "the right time" when interacting with subjects of stories any more by most producers. The right time is now because our readers demand fast content and fuck your feelings.

The irony is that Twitter is probably the one platform that is tirelessly working to make a traditional journalist go back to being traditional by eliminating the urgency of reporting and shifting focus back to analysis and context. So it's weird to watch producers work Twitter to basically digest a primary source and be late by definition. Twitter is way better at telling me what's going on now. I want analysis and context from journalists now, but most haven't picked up on that yet. (This is also why Twitter will not eliminate the media, despite what some people say; half of journalism is placing events in context. Some might say half is a conservative estimate.)

And that's even before you get into the viral video agencies who snap up rights from people who don't know any better, and I can't decide which is worse. Seriously, what a way to make money; what service do you provide, exactly?