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: