Journalist gets soldiers to improve (5)
I believe the answer is:
emend
'improve' is the definition.
(I know that emend is a more specific form of the action improve)
'journalist gets soldiers' is the wordplay.
'journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor).
'gets' is an insertion indicator (gets can mean captures or absorbs).
'soldiers' becomes 'men' (men can mean a group of soldiers).
'ed' placed around 'men' is 'EMEND'.
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for emend that I've seen before include "Remove faults from" , "Modify" , "get rid of faults" , "Rectify" , "Polish" .)