News coming in supports witness for the state (9)
I believe the answer is:
tennessee
'the state' is the definition.
(Tennessee is an example)
'news coming in supports witness' is the wordplay.
'news' becomes 'nn' (n is common abbrev for new, news can be plural).
'coming in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'supports' becomes 'tees' (tee is a kind of support).
'witness' becomes 'see' (synonyms).
'nn' placed into 'tees' is 'tennes'.
'tennes'+'see'='TENNESSEE'
'for' is the link.
(Other definitions for tennessee that I've seen before include "Memphis's state" , "Williams, say" , "16th US state" , "Nashville's state" , "State of south-east US" .)