The Gravel Institute

The Gravel Institute is a progressive think tank, active on YouTube and Twitter. The institute aims to counteract American conservative think tanks, particularly PragerU, from a left-wing perspective.[2] The institute is named for its founder Mike Gravel, a former United States Senator from Alaska and two-time U.S. presidential candidate.

The Gravel Institute
Formation2020 (2020)
Founders
Type501(c)4 Nonprofit[1]
Location
Key people
  • Henry Williams (Chair)
[1]
Websitegravelinstitute.org
The Gravel Institute
Personal information
NationalityAmerican
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2020–present
Genre
  • Politics
  • current affairs
Subscribers159k
Total views1.74 million
100,000 subscribers 2020

History

After Mike Gravel's 2020 presidential campaign ended in 2019, Gravel used some of the remaining funds to launch The Gravel Institute.[3] The Gravel Institute launched in September 2020. The Gravel Institute is mainly run by Henry Williams and David Oks, the two people who as teenagers ran Gravel's 2020 presidential campaign.[4] Gravel himself, who was 90 years old when the institute launched, is not involved in day-to-day operations but serves as a consultant and provides advice at times.[4]

The Gravel Institute was created with the explicit goal of countering PragerU, with Williams stating "the issues that we've so far focused on were, on the one hand, drawn from looking at PragerU topics and countering them" in an interview with Salon.[5]

On September 28, 2020, the Gravel Institute uploaded their first video, formally introducing the project, narrated by H. Jon Benjamin.[6] The initial set of videos on specific subjects began appearing during October 2020. By the end of January 2021, the institute had some 309,300 followers on Twitter and around 155,000 subscribers on YouTube.[4]

References
  1. Williams, Henry. "Henry Williams". Henry Williams. Retrieved 2021-01-23.
  2. Jackson, Gita (October 1, 2020). "The Gravel Institute Is Trying to Make PragerU, But Good". Vice (Motherboard).
  3. Bonn, Tess (August 2, 2019). "Gravel to form liberal think tank after suspending campaign". The Hill.
  4. McMenamin, Lexi (December 5, 2020). "Can the Gravel Institute compete with the right-wing YouTube machine?". Mic. Archived from the original on December 5, 2020. Retrieved December 13, 2020.
  5. Rozsa, Matthew (November 30, 2020). "The internet has become captured by the right. The Gravel Institute is trying to take it back". Salon. Salon.com, LLC. Archived from the original on December 18, 2020. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
  6. "How to Defeat PragerU: The Gravel Institute". YouTube. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
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