I don't think it's because he donated money, they already have the money so they're now more incentivized to be critical of him in order to distance themselves from his wrongdoing.

> Is it because journalists do not understand crypto, like, at all?

I think this is a part of it, even most cryptocurrency enthusiasts don't understand it (a statement that most enthusiasts would concede, just not about themselves), but I think a more influential component is that people just don't care. There have been so many scams like these over the years that everyone already understands cryptocurrency is mostly scams and people are somewhat resigned to the state of things; it's cryptocurrency outrage fatigue. From the media's perspective, the story is far more provocative if they entertain SBF's meandering chaos rather than file it away as just another cryptocurrency scam.

> Nobody, literally nobody, said Bernie Madoff was "suffering from a solvency crisis." They said he lied and stole money.

I think that's just a product of the era we live in, "suffering a solvency crisis" is the type of euphemism you see all the time in the cryptocurrency world.