Yeah, a crash of this magnitude set off because people fell into a ponzi scheme is not good press for bitcoin. 
It's not bitcoin's fault. Things like this happen all the time with fiat currencies. People just have to learn basic economics. Some of the them the hard way. Everything will be alright, once the market wakes up from the shock. That's all.The unfortunate thing about this all is that this will be another black eye for Bitcoin in the press. Look at all the articles already - they point to the previous issues with Bitcoin-related services (MtGox hack, etc.) as "troubles" with Bitcoin. Educated people know enough to see through blatant inaccuracies like that, but for everyone else its "Look! Another reason why Bitcoin is bad!". And if they say a (suspected) ponzi scheme that even affected unrelated people, well that is doubly bad.
I have no doubts that everything will recover in time, including the reputation of Bitcoin; it's just sad that these incidents are linked with Bitcoin, rather than a scammer.
Bottom line - put "criminal activity" and "Bitcoin" together in a sentence, and you have a news-worthy story.