Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig ns03.whitedns.com. NS
Answer
ns03.whitedns.com. 5 NS ns03.whitedns.com.
ns03.whitedns.com. 5 NS ns04.whitedns.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns03.whitedns.com. 5 A 64.40.14.99
ns04.whitedns.com. 5 A 64.40.14.99
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0