Weighed down by imperfection, journalist left the country (8)
I believe the answer is:
defected
'left the country' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with social activities as well as being past participle verbs.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'weighed down by imperfection journalist' is the wordplay.
'weighed down by' means one lot of letters go next to another (in a down clue, some letters go on top of others).
'imperfection' becomes 'defect' (defect is a kind of imperfection).
'journalist' becomes 'ed' (short for editor).
'defect' next to 'ed' is 'DEFECTED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for defected that I've seen before include "Went over to the enemy" , "Turned traitor" .)