Generally, in the United States, you can, in fact, just record people. Legally speaking, that is, which doesn't make it a polite or cool thing to do. Necessarily.

If you're on someone else's property, they can of course set any number of rules, and trespass those who break those rules. But even there, recording people, if against the rules, is still not a crime. The crime is trespass, if this journalist we're speaking of sticks around after being trespassed off the property.