No I don't think we should excuse speaking this way, which isn't something everyone does nor something so many people did years ago. It is a particular style of speaking that is over-represented in certain journalist types.
The use of "like" in this way has been attested since the 1920s, and had been overwhelmingly common in colloquial American English for around 30 years.
It's, I mean, distracting and unpleasant to, like, listen to when every other sentence has, like, meaningless words injected into them which, I mean, could, like, be removed without changing the meaning at all but which, I mean, would be more, like, concise and sound better.
No, it is certainly not true that people have been talking this way since the 20's nor that radio shows, media, journalists etc presented information in this sloppy manner.
It is trivially verifiably not just a default way of talking by listening to podcasters or journalists that exist right now that don't do this but also watching/listening to older media especially. This is akin to vocal fry, another recent grating social phenomenon that has become acceptable for a certain type of public speaker that is drastically different than most people and media types spoke even in the 80's and 90's let alone decades prior.
