I grew up in a small town right outside of Austin, Texas, called Wimberley, on a little chicken farm with my big family. We had a family band; my dad’s a bluegrass musician, and my mom’s a writer.

On New Year's Eve 2024, journalist Jacob Soboroff was sitting around a campfire with a friend when he made an offhand comment that would come back to haunt him: The last thing he wanted to do in the ...