I hate photographic pools. They are the bane of my professional existence, seldom produce decent pictures and when they do we have to share them.

Too often the agency pools we are subjected to are a waste of time and resources; anti-competitive excercises in lazy, lowest common denominator photo-journalism. Autofocus, autoexposure, point and push pictures of non-events.

For the unitiated pools are the mechanism by which organisations, particularly governments, control press access to organised events, ceremonies, state visits, press conferences and the like. A photographer or photographers will be given privileged access on the understanding that they share the results with their colleagues (or rather selected colleagues). In this country as far as agency pools are concerned very seldom does such favoured access deliver pictures to match.

Of course limiting numbers is entirely understandable in circumstances where space is tight, where rescue or forensic teams are working or where discretion is imperative such as at a funeral.

For anyone working in London “security” is the most often used reason for limiting access to a pool. I can see that for anyone charged with ensuring the physical safety of a VIP it is important to keep lines of sight open and access and exits free but I cannot remember the last time an accredited member of the press launched a physical attack on anyone other than a particularly annoying colleague.

In the UK ”pools” are invariably an attempt to guarantee media attention. Restrict access and those twin motivators, pride and paranoia will ensure that news organisations fight like fiends to gain entry whatever the event and if you control access you also have a good chance of controlling the message. Under the guise of offering privileged access to the news of the day they ensure that precious editorial resources are expended reporting a particular version of events.

It is easy to be lulled into a torpor by this pre-digested diet and to justify unquestioning compliance with the excuse that in the middle of it all, from time to time, there are nuggets, but they are very few and very far between and the costs are independence, impartiality and the ability to respond aggressively to a real story.

Maybe as a child I never learned to share nicely.