diff --git a/koji/__init__.py b/koji/__init__.py
index b462dd1d..5de0225c 100644
--- a/koji/__init__.py
+++ b/koji/__init__.py
@@ -2966,6 +2966,16 @@ def removeNonprintable(value):
     # expects raw-encoded string, not unicode
     return value.translate(None, NONPRINTABLE_CHARS)
 
+def fixPrint(value):
+    if not value:
+        return str('')
+    elif six.PY2 and isinstance(value, six.text_type):
+        return value.encode('utf8')
+    elif six.PY3 and isinstance(value, six.binary_type):
+        return value.decode('utf8')
+    else:
+        return value
+
 def fixEncoding(value, fallback='iso8859-15', remove_nonprintable=False):
     """
     Convert value to a 'str' object encoded as UTF-8.
@@ -2976,8 +2986,8 @@ def fixEncoding(value, fallback='iso8859-15', remove_nonprintable=False):
         return six.b('')
 
     if isinstance(value, six.text_type):
-        # value is already unicode, so just convert it
-        # to a utf8-encoded str
+        # value is already unicode(py3: str), so just convert it
+        # to a utf8-encoded str(py3: bytes)
         s = value.encode('utf8')
     else:
         # value is a str, but may be encoded in utf8 or some
diff --git a/koji/util.py b/koji/util.py
index 545e7aa4..aa8a44a5 100644
--- a/koji/util.py
+++ b/koji/util.py
@@ -48,9 +48,11 @@ try:
 except ImportError:  # pragma: no cover
     from sha import new as sha1_constructor
 
+
 def _changelogDate(cldate):
     return time.strftime('%a %b %d %Y', time.strptime(koji.formatTime(cldate), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
 
+
 def formatChangelog(entries):
     """Format a list of changelog entries (dicts)
     into a string representation."""
@@ -59,9 +61,9 @@ def formatChangelog(entries):
         result += """* %s %s
 %s
 
-""" % (_changelogDate(entry['date']), entry['author'].encode("utf-8"),
-       entry['text'].encode("utf-8"))
-
+""" % (_changelogDate(entry['date']),
+       koji.fixPrint(entry['author']),
+       koji.fixPrint(entry['text']))
     return result
 
 DATE_RE = re.compile(r'(\d+)-(\d+)-(\d+)')
diff --git a/tests/test_lib/test_fixEncoding.py b/tests/test_lib/test_fixEncoding.py
index 40727246..b5b6f19c 100644
--- a/tests/test_lib/test_fixEncoding.py
+++ b/tests/test_lib/test_fixEncoding.py
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ from __future__ import absolute_import
 import koji
 import six
 import unittest
+import mock
 
 class FixEncodingTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
     """Main test case container"""
@@ -44,6 +45,23 @@ class FixEncodingTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
             d = a[:-3] + u'\x00\x01' + a[-3:]
             self.assertEqual(koji.fixEncoding(d, remove_nonprintable=True), b)
 
+    @mock.patch('sys.stdout', new_callable=six.StringIO)
+    def test_fixPrint(self, stdout):
+        """Test the fixPrint function"""
+        expected = ''
+        for a, b in self.simple_values:
+            if six.PY3:
+                self.assertEqual(koji.fixPrint(b), a)
+            else:
+                self.assertEqual(koji.fixPrint(b), b)
+            print(koji.fixPrint(b))
+            if six.PY3:
+                expected = expected + a + '\n'
+            else:
+                expected = expected + b + '\n'
+        actual = stdout.getvalue()
+        self.assertEqual(actual, expected)
+
     complex_values = [
         # [ value, fixed ]
         [{}, {}],