According to The Arizona Daily Star, Wildcat editors say the cartoon was run by mistake.  Critics are livid.  A pair of packed-house meetings have been held, with university students, staff, and community members demanding an apology and answers.  An e-mail signed by student leaders also  has been making the rounds calling for a reading and advertising boycott.

The professional cartoonist, who is African-American, wrote in a statement published in the Wildcat:

The strip is based on some true incidents that happened to canvassers in some battleground states.  Is it offensive?  Yes.  Is it sad?  Sure.  But that’s the reality of the United States and this very unique election.

OK, fair enough.  But there’s reality and then there’s news judgment.  It was Wednesday November 5th.  The country had just elected its first African-American president.  Amid all the economic woes and military strife, Obama’s big win represented a contemporary and historical moment of profound hope and change for the country.  If there is one day in which the offensiveness, the N-word, the underbelly of this hope and change could and should have been left out, it was the day after the election.

Running the cartoon appears to truly be an honest mistake on the Wildcat‘s part, and kudos to the editor in chief for owning up.  As she said, “The timing was absolutely horrible.  You want your content to be relevant and match the news of the day.”

College print newspapers also witnessed emptier-than-usual newsstands and stacks.  For example, the EIC of The Maneater at the University of Missouri blogged yesterday that spare copies of the paper were scarce.  “The news is hard to find today,” he wrote.  “Campus readership bins across campus are bare after last night’s elections.”  A screenshot of a portion of the paper’s front page is below.

The Michigan Review collected thoughts from a few student journalists and individuals who love them.  Three highlights:

Ben French, general manager of U-Wire: “College newspapers serve as a major news source for students . . . across the county, which is why the Obama campaign has hosted several conference calls with college media outlets.  Even with falling newspaper readership, college newspaper readership rates are still in the high nineties. People are still picking up a newspaper on the way to class, grabbing a paper that someone left in their seat. College newspapers are able to gain access to college-aged consumers.”

Jamie Klein, Daily Nebraskan staff writer: “The press conferences have helped us bring this year’s presidential election closer to students. Seeing coverage in their student newspaper makes the election easier to grasp because our articles are focused to students and issues that students care about.”

The Review‘s own take: “College media writers are having their work syndicated by outlets such as CBS, Politico, and TMZ.com, and presidential campaigns have taken notice. The campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama have made young voters a priority and the Obama campaign in particular has worked to contact and engage college media outlets, despite the lack of numerical support to show that college students will respond.”

As “NewsHub” team member and j-student extraordinaire Kelly Glista told CMM:

Having had the third presidential debate on our campus we were able to produce a live webcast using mogulus.com, as well as cover it live blogging throughout that evening. . . . [We] are planning similar coverage for Tuesday.

Glista will share a follow-up post later this week about the ins-outs-ups-and-downs of the group’s live online election coverage.  So stay tuned.  In the meantime, come Tuesday, vote early and then tune into “NewsHub.”