Elín Hirst

Who is Elín Hirst?

Elín Stefánsdóttir Hirst is an Icelandic Member of the Icelandic Parliament, Althing, elected 27 April 2013. She is a former journalist, television personality, published author, documentary filmmaker and anchor. She was Head of News of Icelandic public television channel Sjónvarpið from 2002 to 2008.

Elín has a B.Sc. in television journalism from the University of Florida, and an MA in history from the University of Iceland. Elín has German ancestry.

Elín worked at DV before moving to Bylgjan, and later Stöð 2, where she served as Head of News for two and a half years, after which she produced a documentary about German civilians who were interned on the Isle of Man during World War II. Elín has said that the documentary was inspired by her German-born grandfather, who lived in Iceland, being brought to the internment camps. After making the documentary, Elín worked as a news editor at DV, before being hired as a news reporter at the State run TV Sjónvarpið and became Head of News in 2002. Elin has over the years produced 8 documentaries and written the book Don't Look Away, published in 2011, about Guðrún Ebba Ólafsdóttir, the daughter of a former bishop of Iceland who molested his daughter sexually as a child and grown up. Elín's most recent Documentary is The Mystery of the Stem Cell, aired on Icelandic TV in November 2012. Her film The Final Journey, aired in 2010, tells the story of an young Icelandic family that decides to settle in New Iceland, Manitoba, Canada, North America in 1876. More films made by Elin are: The Spanish Flu, first episode and Spanish Flu, second episode, films about the deadly virus and caused this influenza in 1918 and a scientific search in Svalbard Norway for the virus in permafrost.