Anthony Cloud, a Tazewell, Tennessee, native, has been a member of the Middlesboro Daily News team since 2011.

Cloud worked as a general news writer at the Daily News before taking over as sports editor in 2015.

On what attracted him to this kind of work, Cloud stated that he has always been interested in writing and journalism and once he got to college, he knew that journalism was the path he wanted to follow.

“I have been involved in sports forever, since childhood. Going off to college and playing football in Maryville (Tennessee) — sports is just kind of my passion. Sports journalism was one way to stay connected with something I’ve known since I was a kid,” he said.

Cloud stated that coverage for sports and general news is pretty different for the most part. General, overarching news can focus on anything from community events to hard news such as vehicle wrecks and police news. With sports, focusing on the game and developing the story is the crux of the process.

“There’s a lot more information when it comes to general news that you have to gather and then develop all of that information down into a 10- or 15- inch story that everyone can understand — I’m not saying sports is necessarily easier, but you have your game and you tell what happened in the game and move on from there,” said Cloud.

Sports reporting also comes with doing feature news that can focus on anything from a coach’s story to an athlete’s story. In that sense, Cloud stated that sports features and news features are essentially the same from a storytelling perspective.

What may come as something of a surprise, being knowledgeable on “all” aspects of the various kinds of sports a sports editor covers is not essential.

“It definitely helps to know the ins and outs of the sports you’re covering — but to say you have to know everything about them, I don’t necessarily agree with that. For instance, when I took this job, I didn’t know a whole lot about volleyball and just spending time covering that sport; you start to develop that knowledge you need in order to cover it,” he said.

Cloud’s favorite sports are a tie between basketball and football, and his favorite sport to go out and cover is basketball.

“When I cover football, I had been in the sport for so long in the past, I’m covering it and at the same time I tend to critique everything that’s going on so I don’t really get to enjoy covering it as much as, say, basketball. I don’t have that strong connection…so I can just enjoy what’s happening without thinking about the technical aspects of what’s going on,” he said.

Cloud also said that his favorite part of covering sports for the news is simply being able to enjoy the sports. He also stated it’s unique to see the children who play grow up and move on to sports in middle and high school.