... should be based in factual reality and provide some evidence of that reality.
As an example of the characterization of AOC that I see in the main stream media, here is a WaPo article about her from right after she was elected. It characterizes her, and also explores why "the main stream media" struggles to characterize her. No paywall, but you might have to register your email.
Why the media world can’t make sense of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The congressional newcomer doesn’t fit neatly into a preexisting mold.
This article makes so many good points that it is hard to select from them and keep within the four paragraph quote limit. Here is a sample:
In the moments after President Trump’s televised address to the nation last week — a barely disguised campaign pitch promoting his border wall — his Democratic opponents’ response was stilted and tepid. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in the felicitous phrasing of James Poniewozik of the New York Times, were “looking unfortunately like a cross between Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ and the twins from ‘The Shining.’”
Whatever it was that was needed in that crucial moment, they lacked: Spunk. Passion. Vitality. A few minutes later, Ocasio-Cortez made her first appearance with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and exhibited precisely those qualities. She practically jumped off the screen into the nation’s living rooms.
Here is another example covering her personal account of her experiences during the Jan 6 insurrection:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her personal story and revealed our collective trauma.
In many ways, the setting was stark and sterile, but she filled all that emptiness with her clear-eyed recollections of fear and dismay. She might have been using 21st-century technology, but her storytelling style was one that goes back generations. This was our shared oral history — a full reenactment.
She began at the end and then she circled back to the beginning as a dramatist might. She recalled seeing the warning signs of what was to come — of encountering demonstrators earlier that week when she left the Capitol after a vote and headed for her car. Her heart was pounding when she saw their Trump signs attached to their sharp flagpoles, but she still engaged with them. “I like to think I’m disarming,” she said as she laughed.
I read, and support, the "main stream media." What I see is factual and respectful reporting concerning AOC.
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