Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, JonBenet Ramsey, Elizabeth Smart and now Natalee Holloway all became household names because of the way television news divisions, particularly the cable networks, extensively covered the story when they went missing.

Each had another common trait: they were young, white, pretty and female. Some have questioned how they became stories, when more than half of missing people are male and nearly three in 10 are black.

Mankiewicz follows the case of Tamika Huston, a black woman from Spartanburg, S.C., who disappeared last year. Her aunt, a public relations representative, told NBC she tried hard without much success to get national news outlets to report on the story. —David Bauder —‘Dateline’ Visits Missing-Persons Coverage (AP|MyWay)