Given the chop, investigators turned on journalist (5)
I believe the answer is:
diced
'given the chop' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with contact as well as being past participle verbs.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'investigators turned on journalist' is the wordplay.
'investigators' becomes 'CID' (Criminal Investigation Department).
'turned' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'on' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor).
'cid' backwards is 'dic'.
'dic'+'ed'='DICED'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for diced that I've seen before include "Cubed" , "Played with small cubes" , "Chopped into cubes" , "getting the chop!" , "cut into little pieces?" .)