At ABC 7, a dust-up over Mary Hayashi’s shoplifting

From the one-thing-leads-to-another department: Blogger Rich Lieberman reports that ABC 7’s new VP for news, Tracey Watkowski, dressed down the station’s executive news producer the other day after an on-air piece that described Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (D-Castro Valley) as a “convicted criminal.” The journalistic moral: Just because a politician cops a “no contest” plea to shoplifting at Neiman Marcus, it doesn’t mean that, in the legal sense, she’s “convicted” or a “criminal.” After all, what are plea bargains for?

Add: A station source tells Lieberman that Hayashi’s office demanded a retraction but later backed off.