Group of soldiers makes slow progress in reporting measure (6,6)
I believe the answer is:
column inches
'slow progress in reporting measure' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.
'group of soldiers' is the wordplay.
'group' becomes 'column' (column is a kind of group).
'of soldiers' becomes 'inches' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'column'+'inches'='COLUMN INCHES'
'makes' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for column inches that I've seen is " Measurement of newspaper coverage".)