ATLANTA — When he was mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed’s relationship with the news media was notoriously contentious.

He was the kind of politician who punched back when he felt punched. He was well known for blocking reporters on Twitter, and his office regularly criticized journalists by name and issued news releases that vigorously pushed back against negative coverage.

Once, at a February 2017 news conference, Mr. Reed responded to reporters’ requests for records by simultaneously releasing more than 1.4 million pages of documents on paper, stuffed into more than 400 boxes, some of them filled with blank sheets and minuscule spreadsheet printouts — a gesture interpreted by many in the local press corps as a dramatic act of nose-thumbing.

Mr. Reed left office in January 2018 after two terms, but his tenure, and a federal corruption investigation focused on his administration, still linger over city hall like a hangover. Last week, his administration’s relationship with the media was on full display in a downtown Atlanta courtroom, where his former press secretary, Jenna Garland, was facing criminal charges for alleged failure to comply with Georgia’s open records law.