Drink may be essential to best journalists only at first (8)
I believe the answer is:
espresso
'drink' is the definition.
(espresso is a kind of drink)
'essential to best journalists only at first' is the wordplay.
'essential to' indicates the central letters.
'journalists' becomes 'press' (the press can mean the newspaper industry).
'at first' indicates taking the first letters.
The centre of 'best' is 'es'.
The initial letter of 'only' is 'o'.
'es'+'press'+'o'='ESPRESSO'
'may be' is the link.
(Other definitions for espresso that I've seen before include "strong drink" , "Type of coffee" , "Coffee-making machine" , "Seep Ross into the coffee" , "It's made by forcing steam through ground coffee beans" .)