Vilify, at a press gathering, the English (7)
I believe the answer is:
asperse
'vilify' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a press gathering the english' is the wordplay.
'a' becomes 'per'.
'press' becomes 'ass' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gathering' indicates putting letters inside.
'the english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'per' inserted into 'ass' is 'aspers'.
'aspers'+'e'='ASPERSE'
'at' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for asperse that I've seen before include "Slander like Parsees" , "Disparage" , "Accuse falsely" , "Slander, spread false rumours about - as peers may?" , "Slander or calumniate" .)