Question: What books and videos can give me more information about the scandal?
Answer: Richard Campbell's Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication offers the most in-depth analysis of the forces that shaped the Fifties payola scandal, whereas Kerry Segrave's Payola in the Music Industry: A History, 1880-1991 examines payola throughout the history of published and recorded music. To learn more abour Freed, there's the John A. Jackson bio Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock and Roll, and the excellent 1978 film American Hot Wax, a slightly fictionalized but essentially accurate portrait of the DJ that includes the payola scandal, the Boston riot, and cameos by several musical acts that knew and respected Freed.
