The news (first reported on the Press Club blog Nov. 9) that the Contra Costa Times would be outsourcing most of its graphic design department overseas might have surprised some people. But outsourcing is becoming increasingly common in the news business as newspapers and wire services look to cut costs, according to this story in today’s International Herald Tribune. The company getting work from the Contra Costa Times is KCS in India, which bills itself as the “world’s media back office,” according to the IHT story. The Los Angeles Times also uses KCS for its graphics. Reuters opened an office in Bangalore two years ago, initially with 340 employees and 13 journalists, to write about corporate earnings and conduct research on U.S. companies. Since then, the Reuters staff has grown to 1,600 with 100 journalists working on stories about U.S. businesses.