IMO (do not read this as an official forum statement), it's clearly plagiarism. Changing a few words is still stealing the idea of the original author. Try that trick at work as a journalist (or university) and see how fucking fast you're fired and shunned... Without this type of rule folks could "word fuck" anything and claim it as there own.
All of the following are considered plagiarism:
-turning in someone else's work as your own
-copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
-failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
-giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
-changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
-copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether ---you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)
Source:
https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism