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.