Newspaper articles right justified sometimes, sometimes not.?

I can understand your confusion. Some papers justify and some don't Some do both on the same page. Every paper has its own style and all of the above should be considered correct. On the paper I worked for, news stories were justified aand feature stories were not. Don't worry about it. Just do your thing, man...

I can't explain the lack of uniformity you describe in your question. This might simply be the result of mistakes made in the mad dash to get the newspaper out. I can easily see how this might happen in this age of computers and default settings. However, as a professional writer who has worked in newspaper journalism and public relations, I was often responsible for newsletter production and publication; and I can share some of the things I have learned over the years about publication design and layout.

Traditionally, newspapers have always justified their copy on the right and the left sides. I haven't seen a recent copy of the Wall Street Journal, but it used to be a very "gray" publication with, narrow gutters, few photographs and narrow columns that were completely justified (i.e., flush left except for paragraph indents, as well as flush right). Today, newspaper layout incorporates both more photographs and greater "white space." The effect is a more pleasing appearance and, as it turns out, more readable copy.

Besides being much grayer looking, the use of justified copy can create some rather irritating and unpredictable effects. For example, you may have a line of copy with abnormally large spaces between words or even between the letters in a word. In other cases, words that are too long to fit on one line will be divided in odd places, sometimes making it hard to immediately recognize what the word is. These effects are mental interruptions that can cause readers to stumble over the copy and reduce readability.

Modern publications often attempt to overcome these problems by designing publications with wider columns or by setting copy "flush left" (except for paragraph indentations).

Readers are seldom bothered by the justified copy in a book, where the copy is printed the full width of the page. This is because the wider lines of copy are much less subject to the weird effects described above.

A "flush left" format allows words to fall where they will, thus avoiding weird spacing between the words in a sentence or between letters in a word. It also allows more "white space" within your copy, which many people find more restful and visually pleasing. It also has a much more casual look to it than right-left justification.

For the kind of newsletter you are producing, I would probably use the more casual "flush left" format. Readership studies suggest that, for English speaking readers, "flush left" is easier and faster to read because it is what the reader's brain is used to. I also think "flush left" is more contemporary looking.

However, you may not want to make major changes to your publication without checking it out with others first. Is this newsletter being published for some kind of organization? Do changes have to be approved by the board? You might want to find out how much independence and latitude you have before making changes. If the newsletter copy has been justified for decades, it could cause grumbling among readers. This may sound silly, but it happens. If you think you might encounter these kinds of problems, it might be a good idea to (1) do some research to acquire the information you need to back up the changes you want to make and (2) prepare readers for change. In other words, tell them what you are going to do before you do it.