Media reporting that leader’s abandoned excess (7)
I believe the answer is:
overage
'excess' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'media reporting that leader's abandoned' is the wordplay.
'media reporting' becomes 'coverage' (eg newspaper coverage).
'that leader's abandoned' means to remove the first letter.
'coverage' with its first letter taken off is 'OVERAGE'.
(Other definitions for overage that I've seen before include "Older than certain limit" , "Excessively old" , "Excess" , "Too old to be eligible" , "Too old to qualify or a surplus of goods" .)