Mark Hirst is former Editor-in-Chief of Radio Sputnik/Sputnik News UK, formerly RIA Novosti,, Russia's largest news organisation. Hirst is a former broadcast journalist with STV News. He has also produced and appeared in a number of independently-made documentary films.
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 2017 Hirst produced and presented a 30 minute documentary for Radio Sputnik exploring the IRA’s transition from conflict to peace that included interviews with Colin Parry, Professor Peter Shirlow as well as former senior members of the IRA including Séanna Breathnach. In 2003 Hirst produced and appeared in Histoire d'un naufrage confidentiel in association with Atlantic Television and France 3. At the Toulon Film Festival in 2004, a three-day maritime festival in France, it won Best 'International Documentary'. The film subsequently screened in 85 countries. In 2017 Hirst was Associate Producer for an episode of “Combat Ships” broadcast on the History Channel. 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 broadcast on the French international channel TV5 Monde. In 2015 Hirst directed a one-hour documentary, The Ablyazov Syndicate, examining an alleged multibillion-dollar fraud of the BTA Bank by its former Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov. Hirst has contributed articles to the Scottish Left Review magazine and also the Scots Independent newspaper. A former reporter for Orkney Farmer magazine., Hirst has written for every newspaper in Scotland. In 2018 Hirst produced two special episodes of The Alex Salmond Show, broadcast on the RT television channel.
Arrest
In March 2020, Mark Hirst released a youtube video where he said that the legally-protected anonymity of women who had accused Alex Salmond of sexual assault would not be continued and they were "going to reap the whirlwind." When those remarks were criticised by Rape Crisis Scotland, Hirst alleged Rape Crisis Scotland had been directed by the Labour Party. Following an investigation into reports of menacing communication, Hirst was arrested and charged by police in May.
