Awfully dark news was embarrassment (11)
I believe the answer is:
awkwardness
'embarrassment' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'awfully dark news was' is the wordplay.
'awfully' indicates anagramming the letters.
'dark'+'news'+'was'='darknewswas'
'darknewswas' with letters rearranged gives 'AWKWARDNESS'.
(Another definition for awkwardness that I've seen is " Clumsy quality".)
I've seen this clue in The Times.
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