Two years ago, the Coconut Grove Spotlight was reborn around a simple idea:
Neighbors make better decisions when they have reliable information, context to understand what’s happening around them, and a respectful place to connect to one another.
That belief still guides the Spotlight.
Today more than 15,000 readers read the Spotlight twice each week — more than four times the readership from those early days. More than 800 articles have been published, viewed nearly one million times.
Most new readers still arrive the old-fashioned way: through friends, family, neighbors, and shared stories. Why not? The Spotlight is free and accessible to everyone.
Two years later, that says something generous about this community: readers care about thoughtful, reliable, deeply local reporting.
The Coconut Grove Spotlight is a community-supported publication. It is not backed by a large media company and operates without a paywall so reporting remains available to everyone.
That model works because readers support it in different ways: by reading, sharing, correcting, encouraging and, when they can, contributing financially.
Special thanks go to the hundreds of readers who have contributed. Their donations support the professional freelance journalists, photographers, editors, and contributors whose work appears here each week.
The goal has never been simply to publish articles.
The goal is to help neighbors better understand the place they live, reduce confusion around complicated local issues, and strengthen the shared understanding that allows communities to solve problems together.
Thank you for helping the Spotlight take root in your Coconut Grove — and for helping to shape what comes next.
Warmly,
Mel Meinhardt
Publisher
The Coconut Grove Spotlight
Local news. Local matters.
