At the second attempt, ring through the news report (5)
I believe the answer is:
story
'the news report' is the definition.
(synonyms)
'at the second attempt ring' is the wordplay.
'at' says to put letters next to each other.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'second' becomes 's' (common abbreviation).
'attempt ring' becomes 'ory' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
't' after 's' is 'st'.
'st'+'ory'='STORY'
'through' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for story that I've seen before include "Anecdote" , "Rumour" , "Narration" , "See 10 and 19" , "Account, tale" .)