First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 8, 1990

In one of the strangest and most controversial protests in Australian radio history, staff at station Triple J FM secured a management backdown yesterday over last week's suspension of the acting news editor, Mr Nick Franklin.

ABC management reversed a week-long suspension, which followed the partial broadcast of a "banned" song called F ... Tha Police, by the increasingly notorious Los Angeles rap act, N ... With Attitude.

The head of ABC Radio, Mr Malcolm Long, had directed that the song, which had been on the station's playlist for months, be given "a rest".

Mr Franklin was suspended for playing 22 seconds of the song, ironically during a mini-documentary on unsavoury language intended to establish how offensive the song was.

After the backdown by management, normal programs resumed at six last night.

F ... Tha Police has the dubious honour of being the only record in the history of popular music to arouse enough police ire to spur the FBI into urging the public not to buy it.

Not only does it include 64 expletives, but it advocates the use of automatic weaponry, particularly against policemen, with lyrics such as: "A young n ... on the warpath/And when I'm finished/There's gonna be a bloodbath/Of cops dying in LA".

While argument raged at Triple J, the song most often played on Sydney radio yesterday was Express Yourself - another N ... With Attitude tune. This is the only song on their album, Straight Outta Compton, not peppered with swearwords.

From 9am until 4.30pm, Triple J repeated the tune 82 times, preceded on each occasion by a spiel explaining that due to industrial action, normal transmission had been interrupted.

The choice of Express Yourself was something of a shy dig at management by staff - it deals in part with radio censorship:

"Some musicians cuss at home, but are scared to use profanity when they're up on the microphone/Yeah, they want reality, but you will hear none/They'd rather exaggerate/A little fiction ... They ban my group from the radio/Hear NWA and say 'Hell No |'/But you know it aint all about wealth/As long as you make a note to Express Yourself."

After lengthy discussions yesterday, staff at Triple J have agreed not to play F ... Tha Police this week. In return, Mr Franklin's suspension was revoked, he will be paid for time lost, and no record of the suspension will be placed on his personal file pending an internal inquiry this week.

The ABC national officer for the Public Sector Union, Mr Arthur Duncan, said discussions would continue with management over editorial responsibilities at Triple J.

"We spent a lot of time explaining to ABC management that they must give people the opportunity to explain a situation before taking action," he said.

First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on May 8, 1990