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I've noticed that the source "Bugliosi, Vincent; Gentry, Curt (1974). Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders (1992 ed.). Norton. ISBN 0-09-997500-9." is referenced very frequently in this article, often as the only cited source for significant claims.
This book is by Vincent Bugliosi, who was the prosecutor who secured Manson's murder conviction. As a prosecutor, he was paid to view and portray Manson as negatively as possible, and he had a vested interest in the public perception of Manson and of his conviction.
Although the book seems to be popular and widely cited by the press—and although for all I know it could well be correct on every particular—I do not think we should be treating this book as a neutral or unbiased source, given this article concerns a real person, and especially not for so many different claims, including negative claims about other people involved in the case (such as Leona Stevens), some of whom may still be living people (in which case the real living persons standards for references apply). Vsst (talk) 22:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bugliosi is not unbiased, though his work is a RS for straight facts, and certainly a source for Bugliosi's personal opinions. But he's not neutral, and his 'Helter Skelter' theory of the case has always been met with a fair degree of skepticism. Feoffer (talk) Feoffer (talk) 08:23, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see you have been around for some time, but I will still drop a link here: Wikipedia:Systemic bias. Content necessarily reflects the bias in a source, and while we may strive for it, pure neutrality simply does not exist, imho. I may be biased, though. Lectonar (talk) 08:53, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree 100%. I was just confirming for Vsst that we're not naïve about Bugliosi's bias. We use him, like all sources, with a measure of caution. Feoffer (talk) 12:48, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
