Party leading newsman to get hammered (8)
I believe the answer is:
thrashed
'hammered' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'party leading newsman' is the wordplay.
'party' becomes 'thrash' (thrash can informally mean a party).
'leading newsman' becomes 'ed' (short for editor. I am not sure about the 'leading' bit.).
'thrash'+'ed'='THRASHED'
'to get' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for thrashed that I've seen before include "Beaten soundly" , "Beat violently" , "Beat soundly" , "severely punished" , "given whitewashing" .)