[4] Kevin J. Flynn's book The Silent Brotherhood described The Spotlight as regularly featuring "articles on such topics as Bible analysis, taxes and fighting the IRS, bankers and how they bleed the middle class, and how the nation is manipulated by the dreaded Trilateral Commission and Council on Foreign Relations", adding "the paper attracted a huge diversity of readers".
[5] NameBase described the newspaper as "anti-elitist, opposed the Gulf War, wanted the JFK assassination reinvestigated, and felt that corruption and conspiracies can be found in high places".
[2] Howard J. Ruff in his 1979 book How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years praised The Spotlight for its investigative reporting, while criticizing it for a "blatantly biased" right-wing point of view and concluded "there are many things I detest about it, but I wouldn't be without it.
Congressman and John Birch Society leader Larry McDonald criticized The Spotlight in the Congressional Record in 1981 for purported use of the Lyndon LaRouche movement as a source of news items.
[12] Attorney Mark Lane, author of Rush to Judgment and a leading proponent of the theory that the CIA was responsible for the assassination of Kennedy, represented Liberty Lobby.
[14] After the Oklahoma City bombing it was reported that Timothy McVeigh had taken out a classified advertisement in The Spotlight in August 1993 under the name "T. Tuttle"[15] and had used a telephone card purchased from the newspaper.