Occupation Broadcast journalist | Name Mark Hirst | |
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Mark Hirst is a foreign correspondent with Sputnik News, formerly RIA Novosti, (Rossiya Segodnya/Russia Today), Russia's largest news organisation. Hirst is a former broadcast journalist with STV North. He has also produced and appeared in a number of independently-made documentary films.
History and career
Hirst has a BA in Communication Studies from Queen Margaret University. In 2001 Hirst was a communications officer for Orkney Islands Council. In 2003 he was appointed as press officer for the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration. In 2004 he was an aide to SNP MSP Christine Grahame until dismissed by her for "gross misconduct" in 2011. As an SNP aide, he also worked for Sandra White but resigned in 2006 after sending a press release that described the Union flag as a "butcher's apron"
In June 2002 Hirst attended a seminar by the British Security Service (MI5) in the North of Scotland. He claimed one intelligence Officer addressing delegates said that the IRA "had fought a just cause" and "had won a successful campaign" Sunday Herald and Irish Sunday Tribune Martin Ingram, a former intelligence officer in the army’s spying arm, the Force Research Unit said: “I think what this officer is saying is an honest appraisal.” The Home Office refused to comment. Subsequently it issued a DA-Notice preventing the UK media from publishing details of the officer’s identity. In August 2004 Hirst was a speaker at the Damien Walsh Memorial Lecture at Queens University Belfast as part of the Féile an Phobail. The event was organised by the Victims and Survivors Trust. Former civil rights leader and journalist Eamonn McCann gave the second part of the lecture focused on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.
In 2003, Hirst produced and appeared in Histoire d'un naufrage confidentiel (The Story of a Secret Sinking) in association with Atlantic Television and France 3. It was entered at the Toulon Film Festival in 2004, a three day maritime festival in France, where it won Best 'International Documentary'. The film subsequently screened in 85 countriess. In 2005 Hirst co-founded the Lancastria Association of Scotland. In 2008 he successfully petitioned the Scottish Parliament to commission a Commemorative Lancastria Medal, which he designed. In 2012 Hirst was an Associate Producer for the documentary Maritime Mysteries, Case Closed which was broadcast on TV5 Monde. In 2015 Hirst made a one hour documentary, The Ablyazov Syndicate, examining an alleged multi-billion dollar fraud of the BTA Bank by its former Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
Hirst has contributed a few articles to the Scottish Left Review magazine and also the Scots Independent newspaper. A former reporter for Orkney Farmer magazine., Hirst claims to have written for every newspaper in Scotland.