Did Star Trek: The Next Generation's Patrick Stewart influence the way we say "data"?

Gizmodo

There are two ways of saying data: with a hard "a" and a soft "a." Brent Spiner says he believes it was Stewart who popularized the hard "a" way because of the way he said his character Data's name during Star Trek: The Next Generation's first table read. Spiner says he and Stewart disagreed on the pronunciation. So Gene Rodenberry created a new rule for the show, on the spot, that whoever says a name first decides how it’s pronounced from then on. Stewart's pronunciation won out.