We investigate the electronic structures of hole-doped, La0.7Ca0.3MnO3, and electron-doped, La0.7Ce0.3MnO3, manganites by x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy at the O and Mn K-edges. While, the O K-edge XANES results indicate that Ca and Ce doping induce holes in O 2p derived states, the Mn K-edge XANES do not give any evidence for creation of the Mn4+ (or Mn2+) ions by Ca (or Ce) dopants. Such results further questions the validity of double exchange mechanism in understanding the anomalous properties of manganites.
