Sergi Ambudio: "A mosso told a listener: 'We can't do anything but on 'El món a RAC1' they fix many problems'"

BarcelonaSince September 2021, Sergi Ambudio (Terrassa, 1994) has been in charge ofEl contenidor, the open mailbox ofEl món a RAC1 to which listeners can send problems with the administration or with private companies. The journalist, who heads the morning show on RAC1 in the summer, has collected a good part of these stories –very varied and with very different tones, from the truly tragic to the surreal– in a book that also helps to understand the work behind the resolution of each case.

You publish Podries ser tu (Ara Llibres), where you collect the most important stories that have passed through El contenidor, one of the reference sections ofEl món a RAC1. In the book you define it as a public service section. Why?

— Because it's a section that focuses on trying to help people. In other words, it's a public service done by a private radio station, because one thing is not incompatible with the other. And it has a double aspect: on the one hand, helping the specific people who write to you and explain their tragedies, and on the other, pointing out the system's failures. And I believe this latter part is the function we should perform as journalists.

After reviewing so many cases and helping so many people, can you personally continue to believe in the system?

— It's hard to believe. It's true that, from time to time, you have to make an effort and do some cleaning, you know? Disconnect a bit and say: "Well, we get the most extreme and desperate cases and they are often exceptions, fortunately." But it's true that I have to repeat to myself many times that in general what we get are exceptions. Because we don't always get exceptions, let's say. And it's true that The container makes it very difficult for me to continue believing in the system we all live in.

In the book you explain that often from the administration itself or from the police it is recommended to call El món a RAC1 because they solve the problems they have. What does that explain about our society?

— Explain the worst. It's very brutal and very sad, but it happens. In the first chapter of the book, exactly that happens. A completely desperate person because their mother isn't receiving a retirement pension, because it's pending some paperwork, goes to the Mossos d'Esquadra police station and, just before leaving, an officer stops them and says: "Listen, we've already told you that as police we can't do anything, but here we always listen to Basté's program and they fix many things there." Of course, it ties in a bit with what we were just saying. If the police themselves have to tell a citizen "Call the radio because maybe that way it will be solved", what point have we reached? It's very brutal and it's terrible.

Do you think it's a matter of incompetence or neglect?

— Do you think it's a matter of incompetence or neglect?

Have you noticed that the citizen is very vulnerable?

— Have you realized that the citizen is very vulnerable?

Receiving so many stories carries the danger of desensitizing you, but also of suffering too much and taking the cases home with you. Has this happened to you?

— Receiving so many stories carries the danger of becoming desensitized, but also of suffering too much and taking cases home with you. Has this happened to you?El contenedor is very rewarding, but it is also very frustrating. At a certain point I considered stopping, but it quickly passed because I enjoy it a lot. I think that with El contenedor I go to the purest journalism. But Basté had to take me and said: 'Sergi, you are not the one who has to solve this. You will help as much as you can, but there comes a point where the responsibility is not yours.' And the message is super clear and super obvious, but as happens to us many times, clear and obvious messages sometimes have to be repeated for them to sink in, you know?

It is a section that can have an eternal life.

— You said there have been times when you've wanted to stop doing the section. Are you considering an end now?

You said there have been times when you wanted to stop doing the section. Are you considering an end now?

— Now that I've written the book, I can't put it down. We have to do the second part [laughs]. The other day we were joking with Xavi Bundó because Basté said one day that we were "the fear". Bundó told me that this had to be the title of the second book.

Have you noticed that The container of El món a RAC1 generates fear?

— Yes, sometimes there are silences on the other end of the phone... It's normal. It would happen to me too if someone with 800,000 listeners behind them called me and I saw the abyss of being exposed in front of so many people. There are many cases that are resolved before going on air, and this is explained solely by fear. That something has been stuck for two years and I call at two in the afternoon and receive a call at six in the afternoon from the listener in question, who tells me: "Sergi, I don't know how you did it, but they just fixed it for me", is understood solely by this fear. And surely because we have also managed to say: "Hey, here's a problem". Sometimes administrations and companies are so large that they don't know this is happening.