Sometimes citing unnamed sources can come back to bite people who report news and even ensnare him or her in a case of “did he or didn’t he” with the White House. Rob Redding Jr. of the Redding News Review is in the middle of such a debate over whether President Obama attempted to save Troy Davis from execution.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer has “flatly denied” the blogger’s report, Politico reports.

On Sept. 26, Redding cited accounts from “two sources” that in a meeting that day with African-American radio journalists that included Joe Madison, Tom Joyner and American Urban Radio Networks’ April Ryan, President Obama spoke “candidly” about “how he tried to save Troy Davis and why he did not say anything [publically] about his controversial execution.” According to the report, White House officials spent three days exploring how it could intervene on a federal level.

According to one of Redding’s sources, Obama said, “It was a state case and I could not intervene because it wasn’t federal.”

But according to Ryan, Redding’s report is “completely, 100-percent wrong.” She also told Politico that the president was “unequivocal” about the fact that “there was nothing he could do” even though she had pressed him on the issue during the meeting.

Redding is standing by his story.

"In your report, even April D. Ryan says that the death penalty was mentioned at the meeting. She is clearly not the source of our story. We stand by the story, as posted on our websites," Redding wrote in an email message to the publication.

(Photo: AP/David Tulis)