yeah, it's by design because that part was changed not that long ago. Before lines were crossing each other, so had to change the logic of what news to show on the right. I agree with you, it does look confusing with empty boxes, will need to fix it up. Thanks for the feedback.
You can see previous version here http://blog.storyline.im/4/post/2013/01/first-reddit-integra...
One quick thing I noticed is that the thumbnails show up, even if there is no article for them: http://i.imgur.com/QrLZuxF.png