Bad press is still press....I think it has its pros and cons but mostly pros IMO.
I think the real story is that it's possible for someone to amass a fortune in Bitcoins. Some might even say that it's possible for "a fool" to amass a fortune in Bitcoins. (I prefer to think of him as an unfortunate soul, because it could have easily happened to many different people.)
Look at how the downloads of Bitcoin have climbed since the story broke:
http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=244765&ugn=bitcoin&type=&mode=60day(scroll down for the stats)
The highest amount of daily downloads in June was June 8, 13.6K, until yesterday 14,8K. Today well on it's way to a new high.