Reinforce bad news about meat price? (4,2)
I believe the answer is:
beef up
'reinforce' is the definition.
(I know that reinforce is a more specific form of the action beef up)
'bad news about meat price?' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'meat' could be 'beef' (beef is a kind of meat) and 'beef' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'up' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for beef up that I've seen before include "buttress" , "Strengthen with cow meat?" , "Gain muscle" , "Add strength to" , "message poor meat-eaters won't want to hear?" .)