I was only addressing press releases. I don't know about wire services. It's my understanding that publishing them as your own, or implicitly your own because of a lack of attribution, is just plagiarism.
If they pay the requisite fee it is licensed to them to do that, that is the wire services business model. It isn’t plagiarism if you pay for it and it’s done with the writers permission apparently.
I don't remember what our license agreement was exactly, but back when I was in school I did a weekly morning news slot on the school's FM station. I would take all my stories from the AP wire, and the rule was that I always had to start my segment with, "and now some of the top stories from the AP..." or similar.
