Journalists claim of being excluded (5)
I believe the answer is:
press
'journalists' is the definition.
(the press can mean the newspaper industry)
'claim of being excluded' is the wordplay.
'claim' becomes 'profess' (professing is a kind of claiming).
'being excluded' suggests deleting specific letters.
'profess' with 'of' removed is 'PRESS'.
(Other definitions for press that I've seen before include "Put creases in" , "Push - papers" , "Jam" , "Smooth" , "harass > crowd" .)