Book that's right bad, awful, covered by journalist (8)
I believe the answer is:
hardback
'book' is the definition.
(hardback is a kind of book)
'right bad awful covered by journalist' is the wordplay.
'right' becomes 'r' (common abbreviation).
'awful' indicates anagramming the letters.
'covered by' indicates putting letters inside.
'journalist' becomes 'hack' (I've seen this in other clues).
'r'+'bad'='rbad'
'rbad' is an anagram of 'ardb'.
'ardb' going inside 'hack' is 'HARDBACK'.
'that's' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hardback that I've seen before include "Book with board covers" , "Book with stiff covers" , "Style of book binding" , "Durable version of book" , "Sort of book" .)