Staggered start by journalist, very slow at first (11)
I believe the answer is:
dumbfounded
'staggered' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'start by journalist very slow at first' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'start' could be 'found' (I've seen this before) and 'found' is located in the answer.
'journalist' could be 'ed' (short for editor) and 'ed' is present in the answer.
'slow' could be 'dumb' (synonyms) and 'dumb' is located in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for dumbfounded that I've seen is " Gobsmacked".)