With Hillary collapsing, both in real life and the polls, the media frantically tried to steer the ship of state around. The topic they picked was a tired one. Obama's birthplace.
The agenda was obvious. Blunt any gains Trump was making with black voters and change the national focus from Hillary's lies.
We often talk about not letting the media set the agenda. And that's what the Trump campaign tried to do. First it refused to discuss the issue because it was a distraction from the economy and the War on Terror. The media spun that as "Trump refuses to etc...". A release pinning the blame for the story on Team Clinton also came under fire from the media. Eventually the media got what it wanted.
Or not quite what it wanted, which was to drag out the story indefinitely, but they did change the conversation.
And the past few days have been an object lesson in how hard it is to avoid letting the media set the agenda. It's easy to say it, but when the election is seen through the lens of the media, and the media coordinates an attack, refusing to play is difficult.
Perhaps the best available option is not forcibly change the conversation. It's the media's own favorite trick and it ought to be used more often against them.