An operative with news, perhaps (5)
I believe the answer is:
agent
'an operative' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'with news perhaps' is the wordplay.
'with' is an insertion indicator.
'news' becomes 'gen'.
'perhaps' becomes 'at' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gen' put into 'at' is 'AGENT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for agent that I've seen before include "One does business on behalf of another" , "Person who does business on behalf of another" , "factor in Scotland" , "that may be secret?" , "Double-zero-seven, for example" .)