Element identified by Italian fellow endlessly in news (8)
I believe the answer is:
nitrogen
'element' is the definition.
(chemical element)
'italian fellow endlessly in news' is the wordplay.
'italian' becomes 'it' (abbreviation for Italian).
'fellow endlessly' becomes 'nro' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'news' becomes 'gen'.
'it' going inside 'nro' is 'nitro'.
'nitro'+'gen'='NITROGEN'
'identified by' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for nitrogen that I've seen before include "Main gas in air" , "Common gas, N" , "Gaseous element" , "chemists have fixation with?" , "Chemical element" .)