Journalists tend to get a little more leeway for investigative purposes. And presumably they followed up and retrieved these trackers in some way. And will get

Journalists tend to get a little more leeway for investigative purposes. And presumably they followed up and retrieved these trackers in some way. And will get rid of any personal information about the people who received the items. Also, note they were expecting most or all of them to end up in landfills, them finding homes is an ideal outcome, but maybe not expected. It also says something about the quality of returned merchandise and inspection of it: Amazon didn't find and remove the tracking devices, the products "looked fine" and were sent on their way. Perhaps that's one reason Amazon prefers to just toss stuff.