Journalist referring to hotel employee perhaps (8)
I believe the answer is:
reporter
'journalist' is the definition.
(eg a reporter for a newspaper)
'referring to hotel employee perhaps' is the wordplay.
'referring to' becomes 're' ('re' means regarding or about).
'hotel employee perhaps' becomes 'porter' (hotels employ porters).
're'+'porter'='REPORTER'
(Other definitions for reporter that I've seen before include "One writing in newspaper" , "Hack" , "One may get a story" , "media person" , "News journalist" .)