Avoided failure by journalist (6)
I believe the answer is:
missed
'avoided' is the definition.
(missing is a kind of avoiding)
'failure by journalist' is the wordplay.
'failure' becomes 'miss' (miss is a kind of failure).
'by journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor. I am not sure about the 'by' bit.).
'miss'+'ed'='MISSED'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for missed that I've seen before include "Overlooked ?- ?? but not forgotten!" , "came too late" , "Failed to catch" , "Felt the loss" , "Didn't attend" .)