Journalist follows university students straight out of the factory (6)
I believe the answer is:
unused
'straight out of the factory' is the definition.
(something straight out of a factory is unused)
'journalist follows university students' is the wordplay.
'journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor).
'follows' says to put letters next to each other.
'university' becomes 'u'.
'students' becomes 'nus' (I've seen this in other clues).
'u'+'nus'='unus'
'ed' put after 'unus' is 'UNUSED'.
(Other definitions for unused that I've seen before include "Extra" , "Not accustomed to" , "In mint condition" , "Left over" , "Surplus" .)