While attending Howard, she served as a news anchor for campus radio station WHUR.

[1] After college, Whitfield worked at WPLG-TV in Miami, NewsChannel 8 in Washington, D.C., KTVT-TV in Fort Worth, WTNH in New Haven, Connecticut, and WCIV in Charleston, South Carolina.

She worked for other news programs at NBC including Today; she was a morning and afternoon anchor as well as an assignment reporter.

[3] Whitfield acknowledged the controversy during a subsequent broadcast, calling her segment with Rivers "one of the most talked about interviews ending abruptly with an exit".

[5] The following day, Whitfield issued a formal on-air apology, saying she terribly misused those words and was sincerely sorry.