Awful convulsive twitch holding newspaper (6)
I believe the answer is:
tragic
'awful' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'convulsive twitch holding newspaper' is the wordplay.
'convulsive twitch' becomes 'tic' (nervous tic).
'holding' is an insertion indicator.
'newspaper' becomes 'rag' (informal term for a newspaper).
'tic' going around 'rag' is 'TRAGIC'.
(Other definitions for tragic that I've seen before include "Terribly sad and distressing" , "Resulting in great loss" , "Disastrous, pitiful" , "Unfortunate" , "Terrible" .)