I'm new to the forum and the Sharepoint so please forgive me if these
questions have been asked before.

I am using Sharepoint at work and have been given administrator login
but this doesn't seem to be able to let me create pages, alter the
master page or make new templates, is this an access issue or am I
doing something wrong?

I want to create a site based on the news publishing site template.
I can make one on the publishing template but on the news one I don't
seem to be able to make new news articles, does anyone know of a site
that explains this?

Is there a good book or website that explains how to use sharepoint
that would be useful to me? I am a web designer so would be creating
new templates, and sites within it, but I have only been using
Sharepoint for 2 weeks so am still trying to learn the basics.