Always do your research when looking into ICOs and make sure you take the time to read everything including white papers, who the dev team is what other projects they worked on, and if they actually exist. There are a large amount of ICO scams out there. Be very careful.
I think reading whitepapers is important, but the most important thing is the testimony of users and investors. If we just look at the developer profile only, it can deceive us. Because who knows that ICO is falsifying their developer profile? Yes, we should read the news and always do the research as you say. But in my opinion, the testimony remains the most important.