diff --git a/home-manager/home-manager b/home-manager/home-manager
index 329dd8d5c..97166d6f9 100644
--- a/home-manager/home-manager
+++ b/home-manager/home-manager
@@ -73,9 +73,10 @@ function doBuildAttr() {
         --argstr confAttr "$HOME_MANAGER_CONFIG_ATTRIBUTE"
 }
 
+# Presents news to the user. Takes as argument the path to a "news
+# info" file as generated by `buildNews`.
 function presentNews() {
-    local infoFile
-    infoFile=$(buildNews) || return 1
+    local infoFile="$1"
 
     # shellcheck source=/dev/null
     . "$infoFile"
@@ -111,11 +112,22 @@ function presentNews() {
 }
 
 function doBuild() {
-    doBuildAttr -A activationPackage
-    presentNews
+    local newsInfo
+    newsInfo=$(buildNews)
+
+    local exitCode
+    doBuildAttr -A activationPackage \
+        && exitCode=0 || exitCode=1
+
+    presentNews "$newsInfo"
+
+    return $exitCode
 }
 
 function doSwitch() {
+    local newsInfo
+    newsInfo=$(buildNews)
+
     local generation
     local exitCode=0
     local wrkdir
@@ -132,9 +144,7 @@ function doSwitch() {
     # running and $wrkdir is always removed.
     rm -r "$wrkdir"
 
-    if [[ $exitCode -eq 0 ]]; then
-        presentNews
-    fi
+    presentNews "$newsInfo"
 
     return $exitCode
 }
diff --git a/modules/default.nix b/modules/default.nix
index 9137fa384..c5fc9bcbc 100644
--- a/modules/default.nix
+++ b/modules/default.nix
@@ -70,18 +70,17 @@ let
     config._module.check = check;
   };
 
+  rawModule = lib.evalModules {
+    modules = [ configuration ] ++ modules ++ [ pkgsModule ];
+  };
+
   module = showWarnings (
     let
-      mod = lib.evalModules {
-        modules = [ configuration ] ++ modules ++ [ pkgsModule ];
-      };
-
-      failed = collectFailed mod.config;
-
+      failed = collectFailed rawModule.config;
       failedStr = concatStringsSep "\n" (map (x: "- ${x}") failed);
     in
       if failed == []
-      then mod
+      then rawModule
       else throw "\nFailed assertions:\n${failedStr}"
   );
 
@@ -95,9 +94,9 @@ in
   # For backwards compatibility. Please use activationPackage instead.
   activation-script = module.config.home.activationPackage;
 
-  newsDisplay = module.config.news.display;
+  newsDisplay = rawModule.config.news.display;
   newsEntries =
     sort (a: b: a.time > b.time) (
-      filter (a: a.condition) module.config.news.entries
+      filter (a: a.condition) rawModule.config.news.entries
     );
 }