Very tired journalists finally meeting mad man (editor) (9)
I believe the answer is:
shattered
'very tired' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'journalists finally meeting mad man editor' is the wordplay.
'finally' indicates one should take the final letters.
'meeting' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'mad man' becomes 'hatter' (the mad hatter from Alice in Wonderland).
'editor' becomes 'ed' (abbreviation).
The final letter of 'journalists' is 's'.
's'+'hatter'+'ed'='SHATTERED'
(Other definitions for shattered that I've seen before include "dashed to pieces" , "Broke violently into small pieces" , "Broken into sharp pieces" , "He started off, being quite broken up" , "Tired; fragmented" .)