Rodríguez is a freelance journalist based in New York City. For most of her career, she worked at daily newspapers. She covered race relations and cultural affairs for the Detroit News, was a columnist and blogger at The Denver Post, covered immigration and demographics for The Boston Globe and wrote opinion pieces for the Globe's now-defunct "Focus" section. She also worked at the Akron Beacon Journal, where she primarily covered education issues and was a columnist and youth editor at The Syracuse Newspapers.

On Bill O'Reilly's "enemies" list

Her columns at the Denver Post drew ire from Bill O'Reilly, who falsely accused Rodríguez of being a proponent of "open borders" and of calling him a racist.According to Media Matters for America, during the October 25, 2005 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly falsely accused Denver Post columnist Cindy Rodriguez of misquoting him and persisted in his false denials of anti-immigrant comments he made in April.

Rodriguez is listed as one of his "enemies" in his book, The Culture Warrior.

Teaching journalism

Rodríguez teaches journalism at New York University and at Hunter College (CUNY).She has also taught at Metropolitan State College of Denver, Boston University, and Northeastern University. For three years, she ran the Newhouse Minority Journalism program, a year-long educational program on journalism and the media, administered by reporters and editors at The Syracuse Newspapers.

Writing

She has been published in more than three dozen newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Latina Magazine. Her columns for the Denver Post ran on the New York Times and MediaNews wires.Rodríguez was one of a handful of Latina columnists working in the U.S. newsmedia.

National Association of Hispanic Journalists

Rodríguez served as Vice President-Print of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists from 2006 to 2008 and was General At-Large Officer from 2004 to 2006. During her time on the board, she helped create the GLBT Caucus. She is a member of the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism committee.

UNITY: Journalists of Color

From 2007 to 2008, she served as a board member of Unity: Journalists of Color, Inc. She is a member of both the National Association of Black Journalists and Society of Professional Journalists.

Rodríguez mentored aspiring journalists working on The ASNE Reporter, the convention newspaper of The American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2000. She was editor for several years of The Latino Reporter, a convention newspaper of NAHJ that brings together 25 college students from across the country for a one-week journalism bootcamp.

Rodríguez has appeared on various TV and radio shows. In Boston, she was a regular panelist on Revista Hispana (Spanish for Hispanic Magazine), a current events TV talk show. She has also appeared on the news program Inside Boston, the cable TV program Visión, and appeared regularly as a reporter on New England Cable News.

Rodríguez speaks at high schools and universities across the country.