Thanks to everyone for their help. It's working now. Here's the core file saving code for your reference. It removes unncessary line returns, etc.

if (defined $query->param('Submit')) {
  open NEWNEWS, "> cgi/news.txt" || die "Cannot open file: $!";
  $result = $query->param('content');
  $result =~ s/\r//g;
  print NEWNEWS $result;
  close(NEWNEWS);
  print '<p>Saved your changes.</p>';
  $query->delete('Submit');
}
[download]

JoeG