diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_exiftool.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_exiftool.py
index f605024fd..d684d9e1d 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_exiftool.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_exiftool.py
@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
 import json
-import locale
 import subprocess
 from typing import Any, BinaryIO, Union
 
@@ -45,8 +44,6 @@ def exiftool_metadata(
             text=False,
         ).stdout
 
-        return json.loads(
-            output.decode(locale.getpreferredencoding(False)),
-        )[0]
+        return json.loads(output.decode("utf-8"))[0]
     finally:
         file_stream.seek(cur_pos)
diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_plain_text_converter.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_plain_text_converter.py
index 6f1306fe8..b5114fc5d 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_plain_text_converter.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_plain_text_converter.py
@@ -8,11 +8,6 @@
 # Try loading optional (but in this case, required) dependencies
 # Save reporting of any exceptions for later
 _dependency_exc_info = None
-try:
-    import mammoth  # noqa: F401
-except ImportError:
-    # Preserve the error and stack trace for later
-    _dependency_exc_info = sys.exc_info()
 
 ACCEPTED_MIME_TYPE_PREFIXES = [
     "text/",
diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_rss_converter.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_rss_converter.py
index bec42484f..e36b2b31e 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_rss_converter.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_rss_converter.py
@@ -143,6 +143,7 @@ def _parse_rss_type(self, doc: Document) -> DocumentConverterResult:
         channel_title = self._get_data_by_tag_name(channel, "title")
         channel_description = self._get_data_by_tag_name(channel, "description")
         items = channel.getElementsByTagName("item")
+        md_text = ""
         if channel_title:
             md_text = f"# {channel_title}\n"
         if channel_description:
diff --git a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_wikipedia_converter.py b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_wikipedia_converter.py
index c20018659..3692a3793 100644
--- a/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_wikipedia_converter.py
+++ b/packages/markitdown/src/markitdown/converters/_wikipedia_converter.py
@@ -75,7 +75,8 @@ def convert(
                 main_title = title_elm.string
 
             # Convert the page
-            webpage_text = f"# {main_title}\n\n" + _CustomMarkdownify(
+            title_prefix = f"# {main_title}\n\n" if main_title else ""
+            webpage_text = title_prefix + _CustomMarkdownify(
                 **kwargs
             ).convert_soup(body_elm)
         else: