Poor news leader protected by tricky editing (8)
I believe the answer is:
indigent
'poor' is the definition.
('indigent' can be similar in meaning to 'poor')
'news leader protected by tricky editing' is the wordplay.
'leader' says to take the initial letters.
'protected by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'tricky' indicates an anagram.
The initial letter of 'news' is 'n'.
'editing' anagrammed gives 'indiget'.
'n' put inside 'indiget' is 'INDIGENT'.
(Other definitions for indigent that I've seen before include "Impoverished, destitute" , "Poor enough to need help from others" , "Impoverished -- ending it (anag)" , "Poor and needy" , "poor fellow" .)