Some terminal emulators – e.g., kitty – can show images inline. I use `toot` and `tooi` to read the Fediverse in kitty, and the images are there alright.
You don't need to stay completely in the terminal interface. I use newsboat. I have configured it such that if I want to open any media links like that, one keystroke opens them in a new firefox window on top of everything. One can also use something like mpv or imagemagick if firefox feels too "heavy."
I wish more sites added images (in the <enclosure> tag preferably) to their RSS posts. I think images are the perfect middle ground between spicing up pure textbased posts and not being distracting videos on autoplay.
With my self-built reader (link in bio) I'm always delighted to see posts with photos or images attached.
Plug: I made
https://github.com/ratatui/ratatui-image for ratatui projects (like this one), and terminals that support some image protocol. It falls back to some ASCII-art.
I tried to use neomutt a few months ago, and found that all email is now just a mime encoded minefield. too bad, I liked the mutt workflow over having to have a browser opening and checking for stuff.