WS Chronicle

Fredricka Whitfield, a news anchor and correspondent for CNN, will deliver the address at the 121st Commencement exercises for North Carolina Central University on Saturday, May 11. The ceremony will begin at 8 a.m. in O’Kelly–Riddick Stadium.

Based at CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta, Whitfield anchors the weekend edition of CNN Newsroom. She also works as a correspondent for the network, reporting on breaking news events worldwide.

Since joining CNN in 2002, Whitfield has reported from the Persian Gulf region during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games and Washington. D.C. during the 2009 presidential inauguration.

Previously, Whitfield was a correspondent for NBC News and served as an Atlanta-based correspondent for that network. She has covered such stories as the 2000 presidential race and ballot recount as well as multiple extreme weather events involving tornadoes, flooding and hurricanes across the United States.
She covered the 1996 Olympics, the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and the subsequent search for bomber Eric Rudolph. She also covered the 1999 refugee crisis in Macedonia during the Kosovo War.

Before joining NBC, Whitfield was a reporter and anchor at WPLG-TV in Miami, an evening anchor for News Channel 8 in Washington and a general assignment reporter at KTVT-TV in Dallas. She began her professional career as a reporter and morning anchor for WCIV in Charleston, S.C.

Whitfield, who earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Howard University, has received multiple awards and honors for her broadcasting work from Sigma Delta Chi, The Society of Professional Journalists, and the Associated Press. Other awards include 2002 Howard University School of Communications Alumna of the Year; 2005 George Peabody award for live coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath; 2005 Ebony award for Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications; 2007 Emmy award for outstanding live coverage of a breaking news story (long form); 2008 NAMD Communicator of the Year; 2008 Howard University postgraduate achievement in the field of Journalism; and 2009 NYABJ award for long form feature.