I justified it, at length, in the above comment by pointing out how little real information there was in the article about what had actually happened to BTX and Alameda.

I did not say anything about "new investigative journalism". I said it was not news reporting.

The claim that is is entertainment journalism is very simple. This type of piece is written, not to inform, but to entertain. That's why it focusses on color and character, while missing basic story details - the 5 W's, any overview of how the bankrupt businesses worked, etc. Such pieces are often designed to give the impression of information, because this impression is part of the entertainment experience. You can easily find decent and free writing on this topic which provides way better analysis and is generally accurate and honest.

As you have probably noticed, stories about scams and frauds are a very big business, and articles about them are now part of a well-worn pipeline by which books, movies and mini series are made. Very few of these have any commitment either to accuracy in general or to useful information about why such scams are possible, why they are socially important, or how they can be stopped. They exist merely to entertain and titillate. A writer like the author of this piece, will be aware that they are part of this machine, and that there is lots of career advancement to be made in writing fluff about grifters, particularly in a way which tends to get you closer to other grifters.

Wikipedia is not news reporting either. Not sure of your point, however note that the wikipedia page about Sam Bankman-Fried, while shorter than the NYT article, contains vastly more detailed information about his career, and has 85 citations to its sources.