Soldiers tearing up a lot of newspapers (7)
I believe the answer is:
sappers
'soldiers' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'tearing up a lot of newspapers' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'a' could be 'per' (eg 'one a day' means 'one per day') and 'per' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'saps' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sappers that I've seen before include "Royal Engineers" , "Military engineers" .)