Officer looked up to by a learner but not journalist (7)
I believe the answer is:
admiral
'journalist' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'officer looked up to by a learner but not' is the wordplay.
'officer' becomes 'adm'.
'looked up' says the letters should be written in reverse (I've seen 'looking up' mean this).
'to by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a learner' becomes 'l'.
'but not' becomes 'ari' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'l'+'ari' is 'lari'.
'lari' written backwards gives 'iral'.
'adm'+'iral'='ADMIRAL'
(Other definitions for admiral that I've seen before include "Navy rank" , "Eg, Nelson" , "Senior naval officer" , "High-ranking naval officer like Nelson" , "Navy bigwig" .)