"Describing how to sell a newspaper": that's why the newspapers are in business
Journalists write for their audience. For all your statements in support of capitalism, and how profit-making organizations have the perfect right to do whatever it takes to sell their product, I'm surprised you think that newspapers are any different.
I know how to read newspapers because I studied history as well as English. Historiography teaches how to read sources critically.
I daresay that if I were to teach English at a college level, people would come out of the classroom knowing how to read critically, how to write, and maybe even how to spell, areas in which your teachers obviously failed.