Source with plan to contact journalist has the best of motives, none of which will work
I believe the answer is:
well-intentioned
'best of motives none of which will work' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'source with plan to contact journalist has the' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'source' could be 'well' (well is a kind of source) and 'well' is present in the answer.
'plan' could be 'intention' (I've seen this before) and 'intention' is located in the answer.
'journalist' could be 'ed' (short for editor) and 'ed' is found in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for well-intentioned that I've seen is " having good thoughts".)