Crossword Genius

Judge our new top-ranking correspondent (10)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

journalist

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'correspondent' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)

'judge our new top-ranking' is the wordplay.
'judge' becomes 'J' (abbreviation for judge).
'new' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament).
'top ranking' becomes 'alist' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'j'+'our'+'n'+'alist'='JOURNALIST'

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for journalist that I've seen before include "Newspaperman" , "Newspaper 16 dn" , "Writer" , "Hack" , "Correspondent" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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