Craft entries statements failing

Question

I'm try to use related entries from different channels to display content on a home page. Using the code following with "selectNews" as a entries fieldHandle in the Home Page:

  {% set entry = entry.selectNews.first() %}
  {% if entry %}   
     ...
  {% endif %}

This places field entries from craft section "news", the first & only entry. Following that is a div with the same code, but with a new entries field and fieldHandle, "messageBanner", relating to an channel named "Banners". This second set of code fails to display anything. I see that

... {{ entry }}...

tested in the failed div, outside of {%set entry =... endif %}, prints to screen the related entry title from the previous code. How can I get this fixed and what am I missing. Pretty confused.

{% set entry = entry.selectNews.first() %}
  {% if entry %}
...
<div class="row"> 
   {% set asset = entry.newsImage.first() %}
      {% if asset %}
       <img class="col-xs-12" src=" {{ asset.url }} " alt=" News image "/> 
      {% endif %}      
    </div>
  </div>  
...
{% endif %} 


{% set entry = entry.messageBanner.first() %}
  {% if entry %}

<section class="offer-stripe center">
  <div class="container-fluid">
    <div class="row">
      <div class="col-xs-12"> 
        <a href="{{ entry.bannerLink }}">
          <h5><span class="red"> some text </span><small><em> {{entry.bannerText}} </em></small></h5></a>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
</section>

{% endif %} 

Answer 1

I'm not 100% following your question, but it's likely a variable re-use issue.

Basically, you're setting the variable once, and if it exists, do blah....

Then, you're attempting to re-set that variable below. Something goes wrong with that, but entry still exists at that point, so it passes the seconds test but in that second block entry is still pointing to the data it retrieved in the first use.

(You might find it useful to check out: https://straightupcraft.com/articles/testing-if-something-exists-is-defined-length-is-not-null-is-not-empty

...which has a whole lot of stuff about testing variables too)