diff --git a/gensim/scripts/segment_wiki.py b/gensim/scripts/segment_wiki.py
index f0d015bd4b..b43d9d4a30 100755
--- a/gensim/scripts/segment_wiki.py
+++ b/gensim/scripts/segment_wiki.py
@@ -108,7 +108,9 @@ def segment_and_write_all_articles(file_path, output_file, min_article_character
         Number of parallel workers, max(1, multiprocessing.cpu_count() - 1) if None.
 
     """
-    if output_file is not None:
+    if output_file is None:
+        outfile = getattr(sys.stdout, 'buffer', sys.stdout)  # we want write bytes, so for py3 we used 'buffer'
+    else:
         outfile = smart_open(output_file, 'wb')
 
     try:
@@ -120,10 +122,7 @@ def segment_and_write_all_articles(file_path, output_file, min_article_character
                 output_data["section_texts"].append(section_content)
             if (idx + 1) % 100000 == 0:
                 logger.info("processed #%d articles (at %r now)", idx + 1, article_title)
-            if output_file is None:
-                sys.stdout.write(json.dumps(output_data) + "\n")
-            else:
-                outfile.write((json.dumps(output_data) + "\n").encode())
+            outfile.write((json.dumps(output_data) + "\n").encode('utf-8'))
     finally:
         if output_file is not None:
             outfile.close()