Climbing mountains, she's making lead stories (8)
I believe the answer is:
splashes
'lead stories' is the definition.
(newspaper splashes)
'climbing mountains she's' is the wordplay.
'climbing' says the letters should be written in reverse (in a down clue, letters climb up).
'mountains' becomes 'alps' (European mountain range).
'alps' reversed gives 'spla'.
'spla'+'shes'='SPLASHES'
'making' is the link.
(Other definitions for splashes that I've seen before include "Scatters liquid" , "Sloshes, spatters" , "Artist might apply such" , "Scatterings of liquid" .)