Sunday's arson attack on a Mexican newspaper office was the third this month, which is terrifying, but the fact that it targeted a weekly society publication makes it a mysterious follow-up to two attacks very clearly meant to discourage coverage of organized crime. The story sounds like another depressingly familiar example of Mexican organized crime terrorizing the press, but it's not. Unlike the two attacks earlier this month, which immediately followed an investigation by the Monterrey-based El Norte into Mexican cartels, Sunday's attack hit a special El Norte office in the municipality of San Pedro. "The office attacked Sunday puts together a weekly society insert covering weddings, parties and the doings of local celebrities," The Associated Press reports. The front page of the publication, called Sierra Madre, currently has a wedding report, and photos of vacationing celebrities. 

Fortunately nobody was injured in Sunday's attack, for which no group has claimed credit. CNN reports that two armed men "walked into the Sierra Madre office of the El Norte newspaper in the northern city of Monterrey, threatened a security guard, poured gasoline out of canisters and lit the building on fire, the newspaper said." Scary stuff, all the more so because the motive remains a complete mystery. If you can't safely publishing wedding photos and vacation pics, how can you do anything?

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Adam Martin