Newswires, for a subscription fee, supply stories and photographs to newspapers and television. A newswire is composed of editors and journalists who cover stories for a particular company--like the Associated Press (AP), Scripps-Howard, or Reuters.
The term newswire came into existance in the 19th century, when newspapers could suddenly communicate news to each other across telegraph wires. Today, newswire still exists in newspaper lingo.
Image source: Edward Henry Knight. Phelps' Electro-motor Printing Telegraph. 1884. Public domain. Wikimedia Commons.