Sorry about that, I misunderstood. I have tried to test this out with my own insert and update pages that have iRite applied to them and do not get this result. When I submit a blank value that is precisely what shows up in the db.
I even tried setting the formatting on the update page and so long as the entry in the editor is blank the field in the db is blank for me.
When you are on this update page what do you see if you click on the source button? If you can see characters there then you should delete them before updating the record to see if this helps. If you have more trouble with this and cannot get it sorted out post back with the update page or just the iRite instance code that you have on this page so I can see if it is set the same as mine.
In my testing if the editor was blank a blank value would be inserted into the db, if I have text then I will get the <p> tags around the content.
