I assume that for journalists, encryption is also to protect the people who were being filmed (I believe that’s mentioned in the article). If they are identified by an adversary, they can then be brought in for interrogation and retaliation.
This is not for when the user is caught in the act of filming, but afterwards when they get back to their room or are attempting to leave (the country), and- as mentioned in the article- haven’t gotten it into their workflow to separately encrypt then delete their footage.
So, it does seem that in this case, there could be software for their laptop that, when the video camera (or its memory card) is plugged into the computer, automatically encrypts and copies the flash, then deletes it. It doesn’t need to delete the footage on the card if it is already encrypted, but the existence of encrypted files on the camera would be a red flag to anyone inspecting it.
Again, possibly leave innocuous unencrypted footage on the card so it’s not so suspicious.
