Whittow worked for the Western Telegraph and the South Wales Echo, before moving to London to work on the London Evening News, and then the Daily Star.
In October 1986, Whittow became one of the first[citation needed] journalists to report that Queen singer Freddie Mercury could be suffering from AIDS.
In 1987, Whittow travelled to Spain with a brief to purchase a donkey which was due to be beaten as part of a fiesta, and send it to a sanctuary in the UK.
However, a Daily Star journalist achieved this before him, and his newspaper taunted The Sun over this in a front-page story.
[1] He retired from his role at the Express at the beginning of March 2018.