diff --git a/doc/source/usage.rst b/doc/source/usage.rst
index a1c2f67d2..dfac789bc 100644
--- a/doc/source/usage.rst
+++ b/doc/source/usage.rst
@@ -209,9 +209,7 @@ Several options are common to almost all of :program:`khal`'s commands
    Works similar to :option:`--format`, but instead of defining a format string a JSON
    object is created for each specified field. The matching events are collected into
    a JSON array. This option accepts the following subset of :option:`--format`
-   template options
-
-   ::
+   template options::
 
            title, description, uid, start, start-long, start-date,
            start-date-long, start-time, end, end-long, end-date,
@@ -233,7 +231,7 @@ Several options are common to almost all of :program:`khal`'s commands
    Below is an example command which prints a JSON list of objects containing the title and
    description of all events today.
 
-   ::
+    .. code-block:: console
 
            khal list --json title --json description
 
@@ -275,8 +273,7 @@ Commands
 list
 ****
 shows all events scheduled for a given date (or datetime) range, with custom
-formatting:
-::
+formatting::
 
         khal list [-a CALENDAR ... | -d CALENDAR ...]
         [--format FORMAT] [--json FIELD ...] [--day-format DAYFORMAT]
diff --git a/khal/controllers.py b/khal/controllers.py
index a850b33c8..acedf9c09 100644
--- a/khal/controllers.py
+++ b/khal/controllers.py
@@ -255,8 +255,7 @@ def khal_list(
     if agenda_format is None:
         agenda_format = conf['view']['agenda_event_format']
 
-    json_mode = json is not None and len(json) > 0
-    if json_mode:
+    if json:
         formatter = json_formatter(json)
         colors = False
     else:
@@ -313,7 +312,7 @@ def khal_list(
             seen=once,
             colors=colors,
         )
-        if day_format and (conf['default']['show_all_days'] or current_events) and not json_mode:
+        if day_format and (conf['default']['show_all_days'] or current_events) and not json:
             if len(event_column) != 0 and conf['view']['blank_line_before_day']:
                 event_column.append('')
             event_column.append(format_day(start.date(), day_format, conf['locale']))