By Shereen Siewert, Wausau Pilot & Review Editor and Publisher

Happy Monday, readers.

Except for reporting on a motorcycle crash and a house fire, we chose to take most of the weekend off for a much-needed break from the news. With most businesses closed, our options were limited, of course, but we grabbed sandwiches from a local business and had a picnic of sorts at D.C. Everest Park. It was the most relaxing day I’ve had in ages, and it felt great to be out of the house.

I hope you had the chance to get out and enjoy the warm weather and sunshine, too.

While going through emails this morning, there were two that made me stop and think. Both were from readers who wanted to unsubscribe from our daily email. One said, “your newspaper is too liberal for me!’ while the other said, “I won’t read this Republican nonsense anymore!’ I had a professor who used to say that you know you’re doing your job if you get an equal number of complaints from both sides of the aisle. What he meant by that, and something we strive for, is to be as balanced as possible. As a nonprofit news publication, we are non-partisan and do our best to be unbiased in our reporting. Being completely unbiased 100 percent of the time, of course, is impossible. But we try. There have been a number of stories recently from partner publications that we chose not to publish, not because they weren’t fact-based, quality stories, but because we felt strongly that the way they were presented was just too slanted one way or the other.

Here’s the thing, though. I know it’s hard to read stories that challenge our personal belief system. I feel the same way. But just because you don’t agree with something doesn’t mean the facts are wrong.

By the way, if you’d like to unsubscribe, just scroll down to the bottom of the email and click the “unsubscribe” link and you won’t get any more emails from us.

Speaking of email, you’ve probably noticed that we have a popup that asks you to sign in before continuing on. You can close out of it, but it will keep popping up until you do. The news we publish will never have a paywall, ever. But we are asking for registration so we can make better decisions about what kinds of content our readers engage in, and that’s part of the data-gathering process. We will never sell your email address or personal information.

Finally, we are undergoing some major changes in the coming weeks, starting with a massive overhaul of our website. The new site will be faster and easier to load, with quick navigation tools to connect you with the information you’re looking for in a much easier way. We hope to roll that out in exactly one week.

After that, we’ll launch our new app, which is in the design process right now. It is SO cool. I can’t wait.

One thing though – with these changes, we expect there will be glitches. If you see something that needs our attention, be sure to email us at [email protected] (don’t rely on Facebook messenger – those messages can be unread for hours or even days. Thank you, in advance, for your patience as we make these transitions.

As always, thank you for your support. We couldn’t do this without you.