本文以中央电视台《新闻调查》栏目为代表性个案，采用新闻生产社会学及布尔迪厄的场域理论，以及新社会史的研究方法，对栏目诞生后的第一个10年（1996-2006）的新闻生产机制展开深入的语境分析，尝试对电视新闻调查性报道在中国形成的独特样态进行阐释性和批判性的探讨，并以之为切入口展开对整个电视新闻改革的反思。本文认为，在中国独特的国家政治、传媒组织和专业主义的话语的影响之下，中国并不可能出现真正意义上的西方式的电视调查性报道，但即使是不完全的电视调查性报道，也在社会转型的过程中发挥了不可替代的作用。

This article takes CCTV’s renowned news program News Probe as a case to discover and discuss the early social context of China’s television investigative journalism. Using the theoretical framework of sociology of news production and Pierre’s Bourdieu’s field theory, and the method of new social history, the authors offer an in-depth interpretive and critical scan of the first 10 years of China’s TV investigative reporting, based on which a thorough reflection on the overall process of journalism reform is formulated.The article concludes that under the discursive influences of state politics, media organization and professionalism, a true western-style TV investigative reporting model could never be achieved, but even a flawed type of TV investigative reporting could play an irreplaceable role in the era of social transformation.