The sad fact is that most news sites are very intentionally optimizing the minute details of their pages to generate the most ad clicks possible.
The problem of confusing pages that trick you into clicking ads - which, as has been pointed out, is an issue for many non-elderly people as well - is not one of usability ignorance. It's a calculated business decision.
I'd say I'm pretty decent at not accidentally clicking banner ads. But for some reason I've been redirected to the Uber app installation page a dozen times when I was just trying to scroll through text (on the same sites). Either I have some adware or uber is paying to js/meta-redirect me.
The problem of confusing pages that trick you into clicking ads - which, as has been pointed out, is an issue for many non-elderly people as well - is not one of usability ignorance. It's a calculated business decision.