To treat cruelly, stop half the newspapers (7)
I believe the answer is:
oppress
'to treat cruelly' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'stop half the newspapers' is the wordplay.
'half' indicates taking half.
'the newspapers' becomes 'press' (the press is the newspaper industry).
'stop' halved is 'op'.
'op'+'press'='OPPRESS'
(Other definitions for oppress that I've seen before include "Bear down heavily upon" , "Put down" , "Treat tyrannically" , "Burden" , "Abuse" .)