It is common for the subjects of news coverage to try to dictate who can and cannot cover them.

Clinton Administration officials deny that they are trying to dictate welfare policy to the states.

Administration officials emphasized they were not trying to dictate standards to industry.

Never before has the council tried to dictate quite so specifically how this money should be spent.

They tried to dictate and this will not suit us.

First your mother, now you, trying to dictate what I should read.

Most try to dictate a sensibility to the consumers, but he never does.

How dare the Church try to dictate to the government?

Then, he tried to dictate the terms of his final court appearance.

But it did not try to dictate the methods that could be used.