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At least some of the books you mention arguably can be (and are by Google) classified as biography, so they would not be removed by the rule of thumb. But perhaps a better way of phrasing the rule would be "Don't read books by journalists on technical subject matter if your intention is gaining an understanding of that subject". If you want to read journalistic works like Bad Blood because it's a heck of a story, then that's a different matter. I am still failing to find a succinct way to express this thought though :)

For similar reasons to the "time value of money" concept, books read now are worth more than books read in the future. e.g. reading GEB at 20 and having it change the course of your life to become a Computer Science Ph.D. is very different from reading it on your death bed.

Moreover, 3000 books is still only scratching the surface of all non-fiction ever published in English (let alone other languages), so strong heuristics will still be needed.

good point

Dune started out as journalistic research.