The backslash before certain characters is part of a problem with working with php - since quotes are used to declare variables and begin and end text strings (like the title or the description), the php parser has to know the difference between a quote that is being used to begin or end the description, and a quote that's to be included IN the description. The way php does that, is to "escape" out quotes that are to be included as part of the text, by preceding them with a backslash.

Should be a way to get rid of them on use though, just like this message board does - probably not quite a priority yet with everything else everyone wants :)